


Flowers

by Teafully



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Drama, Explicit Language, Family Drama, Gen, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Italian Mafia, Multi, Organized Crime, Other, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, Self-Insert Canon Character, Swearing, Time Travel, Weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-15 14:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 89,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4610580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teafully/pseuds/Teafully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hatred is relentless. His grip upon those who wallow in his poisonous fumes is inescapable; not even those whose transgressions have been forgiven are able to break free. Many are known to have fallen for his lulling lies and comforting justifications... and fate announced that I was only next in line. Rated for language/content. Reincarnated!87/Hana.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Butterfly Weed

**Author's Note:**

> *Reposted by original author to this site*
> 
> Warning: Death, gore, exposition… your typical first chapter for a shameless SI-OC-into-a-canon-character reincarnation story.

Chapter One: Butterfly Weed

_A North American milkweed _(Asclepias tuberosa)_  having showy clusters of usually bright orange flowers and a root that was formerly used in medicine. Also known as orange milkweed or  _pleurisy root_._

_Meaning:  deceit, deception, trickery, and/or fraud._

* * *

It isn't like me at all to care about the feelings of others. It  _definitely_ isn't like me to show my love for anyone but myself.

The rest of them call it narcissism.

I call it self-care.

I guess that's how I am now. I used to be caring, nice, kind… everything that people like in others, I suppose. I learned the hard way that those traits don't necessarily get you anywhere except for a coffin.

I essentially taught myself that love and stupidity are the same thing, just disguised with different definitions and connotations: love being "an intense feeling of deep affection" and stupidity being "behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment". The ghost definitions that lead unsuspecting humans into thinking that these two different ideals are only associated with the idiocy of deciding factors is what screws some of them. I was bested by a combination of both before realizing that they are essentially the same idea.

A surprising amount of others would disagree with me, many of which arguing that I have never experienced anything but false love and that true love is something that can never be passed of as "stupid" or "worthless" because it is "real love"... but what happens when you are a naive child who can't tell the difference?

Tell me; is life staying up night after night and thinking about your own feelings a symptom of love? Is it wondering how on Earth you could be so emotionally attracted to this one person and they seem to complete you? Shortness of breath at the mere thought of the one that you spend most of your time thinking about?

The answer is absolutely not. Regardless of how many would argue that I don't, I know what love is.

Love is instinctual; one shouldn't  _have_  to  _think_  about their feelings; they should  _know_  how they feel already, regardless of their ability to voice those feelings. One person should never be enough to complete the whole of another; human beings are not simply creatures looking for someone to spend their lives with. Their lives should be composed of a circle of both things and people that they care about and in the middle of that circle should be themselves. Human beings start out complete. They are not broken until someone "fixes" them. Hell, they shouldn't be nervous around someone that they love. Love is not nervous. Love is honest and open.

I know too much about the characteristics of love to actually fall into it with someone else. Unlike many, I have seen what happens when love is not meant to be; when the circumstances of destiny interfere with the wishes of humans who fall victim to it. It caused me to become bitter and selfish, which are traits that most tend to shun and shame because they are not considerate of others. However, it was the only way to protect myself from what happened.

I'll settle at showing you how I lost my easygoing life. Rather, how I ended up slowly killing myself; strangled by the idea that I should value someone else's life more than my own.

* * *

_I anxiously glanced up at the clock, waiting for that minute hand to strike that five so I could get out of school._

_I had been dating this man for a while now; it'd been at least three months since I'd met him on an online chat forum. I had no idea what had come over me when I started not being able to wait when I came home from school to speak to him over my shitty computer. It was only last week when he told me he wanted to see me in person. We didn't live too far from each other, only a 15-minute bus ride away from my home, and I couldn't wait to meet him in person._

_I hope he's just as charming as he seems like he is._

_It wasn't long before the bell finally rung, and my heart soared when I launched myself into the crowded hallway. My high school was considered near-ghetto, but everyone knew how to haul ass after school on a Friday. No one wanted to stick around, and the ones who did were the ones who smoked in the bathrooms and had some real kinky sex anywhere the cameras couldn't catch them._

_After the painful five minutes that I spent maneuvering through the crowded hallways and squishing between people of all shapes and sizes, I avoided the stairs where my friends used to hang out at. After all, they wouldn't understand. I'd never told them about my relationship with David, and I knew that I'd be their Joke of the Week if I did._

_The warm, spring air floated through my long hair and I took a deep breath. The long, cold winter was finally easing away as the warmer weather drew in. The day of April 20_ _th_ _would not only be the best day of my life, but it also could be the day that I discovered if the feelings that I felt were real._

_I caught the city bus just in time, even though I had to chase it for a block and a half. My sneakers (adorned with little stars drawn on by my friends) were a mess from running through puddles from the storm the night before, but the bus driver didn't seem to mind me stepping all over his lunch. All I received was a glare._

_Shuffling to the back, I noticed the characters in the bus:_

_A woman putting on some deep red lipstick with her hair in a neat bun; you could guess that she was either on her way to a hot date or a job interview. Either way, it was something important._

_A man with a newspaper in front of his face stopped to glance my way as I shimmied to the seat behind him, making sure to set my bag beside me in case some stranger decided to get way too friendly._

_The next stop was mine, however, and I stepped off of the bus on a city street and I proceeded to run through the directions that he gave me._

" _Meet me at the park and we'll go over to my place."_

_I looked both ways; left led to the end of the street toward an apartment complex that looked just a tad under the weather, and the right led toward a grassy area. I trusted my instinct and took the right. My bag swung unhealthily over my shoulder, and I strode down the street self-consciously._

_This was a bad part of town and I knew it, but that wasn't about to kill the curiosity that arose within me. It would take a lot more than stories that happened after dark to scare me away._

_The park was beginning to bud; it seemed to give back the hope that this part of town seemed to go without. The trees were dappled with green and the grass was beginning to grow back much healthier and fuller._

_My heart began to beat out of my chest as I observed every human being in the park, waiting for David to make himself known to me. I had been waiting a long time for this, and I thought that I would be much happier about it than I was. Instead, I was greeted with a feeling that mirrored fear._

_I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, and I certainly had seen a picture of him, sure. His most noticeable features were the piercings that he sported on his nose, ears, and lips. The silvery studs were the things that I was waiting to identify. His pale skin and the tight shirts that he seemed like he would wear couldn't be that difficult to find in a park, right?_

" _Hey!"_

_A silky, loose voice greeted me and when I turned around, I felt my heart soar happily._

_David Wells was definitely a character; tattoos spiraling down both of his arms and percings adorning his face and ears. To some, those are red flags plain and simple. To me, they were nothing of the sort. It wasn't long before I warmed up to him and he to me and we made our way to his house._

_David lived alone; his mother was hardly home and his father didn't exist. His home was quite small and cozy, much unlike mine, which in turn was larger than this. I liked his house, though; the furniture was well-taken care of and all surfaces were clean._

_His personality was just like I thought it was. Gentle, caring, and lost. He always seemed to be lost in thought; listening to every sound, every car going by, everything. We held intelligent conversations, but I kept noticing how his eyes wandered away. Whether it be toward the door or the windows, I got the feeling that he was nervous. On-edge._

_Disappointment welled up in my throat, but I soldiered on, trying to find comfort in the fact that I had finally met the man whom I had convinced myself was worth any pain that I felt in the thought that he had his mind on something other than me._

_Was it truly fair that I should value him above all else at this very moment when obviously I was hardly second-best in his own mind?_

_Soon, our conversation dwindled down to nothing. We ceased speaking to each other and I watched as the sun slowly went down. Every part of me wanted to tell him that I had to go home, but I knew that I didn't have the heart to do so. Relishing in our silence, no matter how uncomfortable it was, was good enough for me._

_It was a blur of motion within the next fifteen minutes, but David suddenly told me to go to the back room. Moments later, a loud voice sounded from the front door as David raced to a differing room, emerging with a pistol in his left hand._

" _Police search warrant, open the door!"_

_My mind raced with possibilities to illusion myself out of this one._

_It's a prank._

_They've hit the wrong house._

_They're looking for one of his relatives._

_I couldn't even hope to psych myself out when David turned around and told me to hide in the bathroom or something._

" _As long as you don't stay out in the open!"_

_I'd never seen such a personality change before. I'm not sure if it was shock that forced me to stay put or if I wasn't going to leave him after just now getting to know him, but I couldn't bring myself to do what I was told._

_You can't shoot at the police unless you expect to get gunned down as well._

_That was the only thought that was in my mind at the time, and I couldn't hope to talk David out of this craze that he seemed to be stuck in. His dark chocolate eyes burned into the door as the police screamed at each other and at David to open up._

_The pistol in his hand shone as he fiddled with it behind his back, undecided on what to do._

_He can't hope to take on the police, could he?_

_I was scared for him; it was only common sense to comply with the rules given to you by law enforcement, and if you refused, it could get you thrown into jail for a very long time. In David's case, I think the punishment could be much more severe._

_We had to get out. Even if we were surrounded._

_David didn't seem to listen to me, no matter how much I pleaded to him that he couldn't hope to attack the police. What he must have done to get a search warrant hadn't even crossed my mind in the confusion as I tugged at David's arm, telling him to get out of the house._

_I stared at the back door, seeing that only one man was guarding the back. David must have seen it too, as he took one last glance at the shaking front door and dove for the back door, telling me to stick close to him._

_I did as I was told this time and tailed it behind him, keeping my eye on the pistol that he refused to let go of. The same pistol that I stared at came off of safety as he pushed the door open and opened fire before streaking across the lawn. I followed closely behind, fueled only by adrenaline._

_We ran without looking back and we could hear them on our tails, but neither of us spoke a word as we tailed it down the street. The thought that did come into my mind was this:_

_How could I have allowed myself to be involved with him? He's a criminal._

_We ran until we couldn't run anymore and the sounds of police were off in the near-distance. We dove behind a house and into a drainage alley before stopping to think._

" _What did you do?" I asked, gasping for my breath as David looked around, pulling his shirt up to wipe the sweat off of his face._

" _Something I'm not proud of. The hell are you running with me for? If you tell them you have nothing to do with it, they'll let you go."_

_I couldn't answer him; he was right. It was much too late to say I wasn't involved, no matter how much I really wasn't. I had already evaded the law, and now I was fraternizing with the offender._

" _You never told me this!" My voice was beginning to rise, but David shoved me forward as the voices and sirens grew nearer._

" _It doesn't matter! Get the hell out of here!"_

_A feeling, one of something mixed with fear and whatever courage I had summoned up, arose in my throat as I groped for the pistol in his hands._

" _I can do it! You can escape, and I'll do it."_

_David looked baffled, but I had caught him off-guard, snagging the pistol from his grasp. He looked down at my hands like he was surprised, but a small smirk curled into his features._

" _I'll find you when you make it out. Thanks!"_

_With that, he sped off._

_I was unsure how to feel as I watched the beautiful boy sprint down the drainage alley and disappear from sight. The words that he had said were very encouraging, but the way that his face curled up was… intimidating._

_Nonetheless, I froze when an agitated voice told me to do so._

" _Freeze!"_

_I turned to see one of the boys in blue pointing his own gun at me. I was still stuck on my decision and wondering if it was the right one. I was no hero. How did I expect this to end? I'd never even held a gun in my life, and here I was, expecting to face-off with a man who had trained for days on end to be able to use it efficiently._

" _Put your hands above your head!"_

" _Drop the gun!"_

_I slowly felt the gun in my own hand wiggle as my own hand twitched in shock._

_I needed to drop the gun._

_Drop the gun._

_That's all that it would take._

_More police had begun to show up, threateningly pointing their guns and tasers my way. Every single one of them seemed to scream "Drop the gun!" as I waited for my brain to process a response._

_David trusted me to hold them off._

_I couldn't let him down._

_With that, I slowly rose my arm, but the last thing I heard was the horrid sound of bullets flying through the air and the swift, unbearable pain that gripped my entire body. It only took a moment._

_Within that one, final moment, the only thing I could imagine in my head was David. Not my family or my friends. Not my pets or my favorite things to do._

_David._

_How that smirk wasn't a thank you; it was the triumphant smile of a boy who had successfully used someone else._

_The last thing that I had managed to do in life was be used by someone who never truly cared about me._

* * *

It truly reminds me of that Titanic movie, the way that I died. Sure, what a sad day in history. People from all over the world died from every class on that ship. I'm sure the whole world mourned that day. However, those sister ideals of love and stupidity destroyed Jack and Rose. They also destroyed me in my own life. If I had realized that I should have been caring about myself rather than others, I would have never gotten myself into that mess.

Contrary to their completely fictional story, though, no one mourned  _me_  when I passed. I deserved it in their eyes. I was a menace to society to those who did not know the full story.

Regardless, that was the end of that. My life was over. Now, I've never been religious and I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, but when I died, I thought it was over. I thought I'd just be dead and it'd be like an eternal slumber that I would never hope to awaken from. It was what I deserved, anyway.

Unfortunately, my journey wasn't over just yet. In fact, it'd only just started.

Reincarnation seems to be life's little sister in that case; it likes to copy its sister and do exactly what it did to me before, but in a much more difficult and sloppier way. It made sure that I was reborn with the fears that lead to my death and it formed a world around me that would prove to lead me down a path that many do not wish to follow.

Sometimes, though, you don't seem to have much of a choice.

* * *

" _Because of your willingness to sacrifice your life for someone who would not have done the same for you, you have earned yourself another chance to live. In exchange for this second chance, you will gain fears that you never had in your previous life and your current memories will be erased."_

* * *

"You're absolutely  _sure_  there were no complications?"

A man stood at the counter of a hospital, wringing his hands and straightening his outfit. He hadn't been in-town at the time of his faithful wife's labor and he had caught the first plane back to Namimori to visit her. On the way, he had picked out a handful of red roses for her. Plastered to his face was a frown that told a multitude of different stories, but he hadn't meant to seem unhappy. If anything, the reason why he frowned was because he was too afraid to smile. What if something had happened to his beloved wife or their newborn child?

"Yes; it was a textbook birth. You have yourself one healthy child, sir."

The red-headed nurse smiled, tight-lipped and fake, as if she had to do this exact same thing every damn day. By no means was this reassuring to the frowning man, whose anxiety regarding the whole "birth" situation was only beginning to peak. The last thing he needed was a sweetened lie to keep him away from his child and wife. Even when he attempted to think rationally, he knew that they both had the potential to be injured.

"May I–?"

Before he even got the chance to ask, the woman had already begun typing on the computer in front of her, searching the system for the patient in mind.

"Of course. Your wife's name?"

"Kurokawa Akahana."

"And who are you to the patient?"

"Her husband, Kurokawa Masato."

The woman typed at a relatively slow pace and it seemed like eons to Masato before she looked back up and came out from behind the counter, beckoning him only with the sound of her footsteps.

"Follow me."

The walk was relatively short and they came to a room at the end of one of the halls, where the nurse turned to Masato. He smoothed his dark hair back as he smelled the fresh roses in his grasp. The thin plastic that held them together began to feel slippery with sweat and the tenseness of the situation that followed only made him skittish. His hands weaved in and out of each other regardless of the bouquet in his hands.

"Kurokawa Akahana, your husband is here for a visit."

"Thank you." The nervous man dipped his head to the nurse politely and the nurse allowed him inside where his wife was calmly lounging with their newborn child. It's eyes were open, but he could hardly believe how much the child's facial features mirrored the woman who had birthed her: while both parents shared dark hair, Akahana's petite facial structure could be clearly recognized... yet the chiseled appearance of a strong chin was easily Masato's own contribution to the child's genes. Even though the weak eyes that the child attempted to use to glance around the room were of Masato's deep-gray hue, the dainty way they were presented was an obvious trait from Akahana.

"Masato, come greet your daughter," Akahana gave him a polite smile that hardly seemed to reach her eyes. The woman must have just woken up from a short-lived nap of some sorts. "You haven't had the chance yet, with you being late as usual."

Masato tensed immediately, placing the forgotten roses upon the table beside Akahana. The bliss that he floated around in was abruptly cut short as this new information processed. He dared not even approach his wife and the unexpected child.

"Daughter? I thought they said we were having–"

"A son, I know." Akahana still sounded quite weak from her ordeal, but her eyes were regaining their usual spark with every snarky remark. "I'm glad that it turned out this way, though. Now, we can go shopping for frilly things!"

However, Masato couldn't share the woman's joy. Every plan he  _had_  had been for a son. Every thought he had about his new child was how the two would spend their quality time together, man-to-man… not for a girl, who would be bound to have womanly issues that they couldn't connect over and an attitude that would make even the snobbiest seem like a doll. This was something Masato hadn't even had the time to mentally prepare for.

"Masato? What's with that look on your face? Aren't you happy? She's a healthy little one, even though she hasn't been crying near as much as she should be, according to the nurses... but I'm grateful; this will be the last of the peaceful times we'll have for awhile! Here's to the endless nights of staying up and listening to her and wondering why the hell she hadn't done it at a more convenient time!"

Akahana laughed again, touching her nose to the child's, before looking up again to see her husband's troubled face once more. Masato hardly looked as if he felt anything now; he didn't even seem amused by her constant joking around.

"You wanted a son, I know… why don't you name her? I'm sure you'll have the same connection regardless, if that's what you're worried about."

Masato glanced at his wife once more and back to his newborn child. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off of her for a reason his wife couldn't seem to understand just from context clues. His thoughtless face morphed into a variation of thoughtfulness.

"She looks a lot you, Akahana… we could name her after you."

Before Akahana could neither agree nor disagree, the child gaped its mouth into what looked like a gigantic yawn.

"She's just as tired as I am! I'm glad you dropped by when you did," Akahana to laugh once again, all worrying thoughts about her unsure husband lost within the jokes. "We  _both_  might have been asleep if you had taken your time!"

Masato stared into Akahana's icy-gray eyes before looking back to the child, and he finally reached out toward his wife. "How do you feel about the name 'Hana'? It will remind me of you every time I say her name."

Akahana paused to wipe her own hair out of her face before turning back to her newly-named child, Hana. Her eyes were closed, but her breathing was very steady, as if she was asleep already.

"Kurokawa Hana… it's a beautiful name, Masato. I knew that you would choose something fitting."

Masato only managed to stare back, watching his own ambitions melt before his eyes. What he had hoped to accomplish had just been turned upside-down. However, he only watched his daughter snore softly in silence, reluctant to voice to his own wife exactly what this meant for the both of them.


	2. Ivy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Informational/expositional chapter (ie kinda boring). I don't know how to be funny; I'm working on it. Don't forget foul language, too.

 

 

* * *

_Flashback:_

" _Kurokawa Hana… it's a beautiful name, Masato. I knew that you would choose something fitting."_

_Masato only managed to stare back, watching his own ambitions melt before his eyes. What he had hoped to accomplish had just been turned upside-down. However, he only watched his daughter snore softly in silence, reluctant to voice to his own wife exactly what this meant for the both of them._

* * *

Chapter Two: Ivy 

_While this plant is not necessarily categorized by many as a flower, it certainly has it's very own way of stealing the spotlight. Ivy can grow up to 90 feet tall and it is recognizable by its bright-green leaves. Some kinds of ivy are poisonous and that can be determined based on the leaves and how they look._

_Meaning:  friendship, fidelity, and/or affection._

* * *

I made my humble way down the street to prepare for the long walk back to my house after a butchering day of school. While I'm a good student who never truly slacked off on my studies, I had no stellar track-record with administration.

Just today, I had started off the year with a well-earned detention that came about from mouthing off to my teacher. Accompanied with a restless home life and an infuriating school life, I had to accept that I had only set myself up for social failure.

This is just the life of one Kurokawa Hana.

I gently pulled out my phone as I turned onto my street; it was a gift from my mother, and I had promised to take special care of it because I don't usually get nice things. Quickly, I began to scroll through a story that I had been recently writing. All I really did when I walked home was check for errors before posting my story online, but not before seeing a red "1" symbol pop up at the top of my screen, indicative of a new email.

_1 Unread Email_

_Mother_

_Re: hello daughter!_

_How've you been, Hannie? I'm sending you this from work because I won't be home in time for dinner. How was your first day of school? Your father will be home tomorrow morning! He will be flying in late tonight; he's on vacation! Won't this be nice?_

I couldn't resist a sigh in contempt at the final part of the text and I nearly relented myself into ignoring the entire thing.

No; it  _wouldn't_  be nice.

The man was practically a stranger to me, as he was gone for work most days of the year. In total, he came to see his family for maybe a week out of every month, which usually equated for about three months of the year.

_If I don't answer, I'll be more screwed than I already am! Talk about no breaks..._

Giving into myself, I pulled off to the side of the sidewalk and found myself a nice place to sit for a couple of seconds as I quickly typed my reply:

_Re: hello daughter!_

_I'm fine, but we have some things to talk about when you get home and before he comes home. School is a regular pain and I didn't expect for it to be any different from last year. It's not. I'm almost home and I'll find something in the cabinets to make myself for dinner._

I didn't even bother to answer the final question in my mother's email as I quickly got back up and walked as fast as I could to my house before I had the chance to receive another email. My muscles ached from the journey, and when I did stop in front of my own house, I took a deep breath. Hesitantly stepping inside, I set my bag down near the door before sliding off my shoes. My home was pleasantly quiet as usual; only the humming of a TV in a different room and my own breathing could be obviously heard.

Not a soul was home.

_Good; I can have some time to put my words together before telling her about my day._

It would hardly be news for my mother, Akahana, to hear about what I had done at school to get a detention; the same thing happened a handful of times the previous year. Akahana and Masato had heard a great deal of their daughter's constant attitude with authority at school, but what they could do about it was miniscule.

I began to climb the stairs up to my room to relax before the doorbell rang. The vibrations echoed off of the walls and I paused, contemplating answering it or not. I went with my lesser judgment and stepped toward the white door, opening it cautiously, but I slacked when I sighted my best friend of several years standing there with an equally-familiar boy who happened to be one of the most popular guys at Namimori Middle.

"We waited for you until after your detention ended, but we didn't see you leave!"

Sasagawa Kyoko stood in front of me, her honey-brown eyes pleading and mixed with the minimal anger that someone as graceful and flawless as Kyoko could hold. Our friendship was one of the few things that I dearly treasured, and without it, I knew I would be utterly lost.

"I didn't see you guys, either," My dark eyes wandered up to the face of the boy standing behind my beloved best friend, and he waved self-consciously. "You've brought Yamamoto over, too?"

While I have never been particularly close with the most popular boy in my year, he and Kyoko shared a history that I could not... and because of it, they've been surrounded by the rumors of being a "couple". Their statuses as 'popular' didn't seem to help, either. Kyoko's mother and Yamamoto's father are both good friends because of their trades; Yamamoto's father is the owner of a very successful sushi restaurant in town, and Kyoko's mother is the spokesperson for his supplier. They became such good friends that it soon carried on through their children, and because of it, the rumors flew.

"Yes! We decided to come over and see how you were doing after this morning…"

I repressed a sigh before allowing my friends into my humble abode; that morning was bound to start off like any other until Yamaguchi-sensei decided to call on me and ask me about my break from the school year. After repeatedly telling my teacher that nothing important happened and to move on to the next kid, he had asked me the dreaded "what did you do for fun?" question.

Apparently "skinning the carcasses of humans who have shitty opinions and gutting them like the pigs they are through writing" is not a school-appropriate answer, thus landing silly me a solitary seat in detention. At least I had gotten all of my homework done.

"I'm doing great. It was a great way to get this year started; knowing that Yamaguchi-sensei will have it out for me will keep me on my toes and prevent me from screwing up any further."

Yamamoto gave me a questioning stare, but nonetheless settled into my closed-off and comfortable living space and took a seat on one of my family's couches.

"That was pretty intense, too. Yamaguchi was pretty flustered for the rest of the day!"

I laughed at Yamamoto's commentary and Kyoko followed suit, settling herself on the plush couch that Yamamoto had sat on only moments before.

"I think he was intimidated just a little bit; he didn't dare call on me for the rest of the day!"

"Yes but," Kyoko began, tapping her lip with her thin index finger. "What about the rest of the year? Won't he have it out for you, Hana-chan?"

I shrugged, hardly caring, despite the prospect of a miserable year floating above my head. "And? At least I get to amuse myself and the rest of the class at the same time."

Yamamoto allowed himself to smile, tightening his arms around his backpack as he lounged back. I noticed this, but I decided not to say a word about it aloud... not to mention to  _Kyoko_. The thought would only bother her; that Yamamoto been acting strange recently. Nonetheless, it was probably none of my business. However, Kyoko was hardly as detail-savvy:

"What's with you today?" The ever-graceful Kyoko asked him, her small facial features bunching up in utter confusion.

Yamamoto himself only gave her a faint smile before getting up and stretching, allowing his navel to peek out from beneath the hem of his shirt. "Nothing! It just feels odd not having practice at this hour. I need to be active!"

Kyoko took that as an acceptable answer as she nodded in understanding, her maple-colored eyes shining with relief; she had bought what I knew to be a cover-up for whatever was on his mind. Whatever it was, though, I knew that he would never have the heart to burden Kyoko with it, just like me.

"If you're so antsy," I turned to Yamamoto with a crack of my lower back as I stretched my sides in turn. "We should go do something. I don't want to sit in my house and do nothing; I finished my homework in detention."

The pair quickly relented to my wishes and they each picked up their school bags before heading out of the door. All thoughts of my family life had disappeared before quickly returning in one instant as my phone buzzed.

_1 Unread Email_

_Mother_

_Re: hello daughter!_

_Oh no! Don't tell me you got into trouble again, Hannie… I don't wish to have another word with your principal. I'm sure there is something in the fridge for when you get hungry. I'll be home at about 9 tonight; God forbid that I finish this paperwork!_

I glanced at the email once more as I headed down the street behind my two friends (after all, a sidewalk only seems to be made for two) and thought over the possibilities.

I could either: tell my mother over email  _right now_  about what had happened today.

_Or:_  I could wait until my mother got home and endure the punishment then.

Overall, I chose the latter in a split second as Kyoko turned around to meet my gaze. "Where do you think we should go? Takeshi-kun says that we could go to his dad's business and get a free meal!"

The dark-haired boy only brought his hand to the back of his head to rub nervously.

"I'm sure he'll want me to help out over there. Wednesday nights are always one of our busiest!"

* * *

The trio entered the Yamamoto's place of business, TakeSushi. Back in it's day, it was a popular place to eat (and it still is!), as the sushi served was probably the best in the whole of Japan.

I quickly filed in behind Kyoko who followed Yamamoto into the establishment where it looked comfortable; with only a few customers inside, the building was dressed simply but smelled of delicious delicacies.

"Hey, Pop!"

Yamamoto's father, Tsuyoshi, turned around and paused from serving a customer to give his son a large, Yamamoto-style smile.

"Very good of you to drop by, son! In fact, I might need some help behind the counter…"

I slowly began to distance herself from the conversation; as Tsuyoshi spotted Kyoko, the conversation shifted to how her mother was doing and a brief story about the good ol' days when Tsuyoshi and Kyoko's mother would stick around for hours just chatting. That was a topic that I could, regrettably, not join into. It was an occurrence that was not often, but it was expected, and I held up my (figurative) white flag.

Instead of moping about how I wished I could have a close relationship with one of my friends, I spaced out and retreated to the front of TakeSushi to pull out my phone to find that I had forgotten to respond to my mother's previous email.

_I wonder what she'll say about me getting another detention... hopefully I won't be skinned alive..._

Just as I began to type the words in my head onto my screen–

"Oof!"

I was suddenly swept off of my feet and I fell down onto the hard, concrete ground as the sound of paper fluttered in my ears in all different directions. My phone flew out of my hands and for a second everything spun around me.

_I hope, for the sake of the flabbergasted frog in front of me, that my phone isn't broken. My mom won't just skin me; after finding out about my detention, she'll eat me alive!_

Quickly, I felt around the sea of paper to the cold, metallic edge of my phone, and I quickly observed by both touch and sight, that my phone was not broken.

_That was a close one._

However, I looked up to my near-assaulter to ask him a quick question:

"Who the hell–?"

"A-ah! I'm sorry!"

A puny voice sounded above all other sounds as the sound of quivering paper muffled. I picked myself up and searched for the one who had knocked me to the ground. A redheaded kid was on all fours, searching for something that he obviously couldn't see. I glanced to my left to see a pair of glasses beside my foot and I quickly handed them over to the boy, who put them on himself and blinked three times before recoiling suddenly.

"A-A  _ **girl**_!"

I flinched from the kid's sudden jerk and opened my mouth to tell him to stay out of my way, but he scratched his head in a frustrated manner before I even had the chance.

"Ah… my chemistry report is all out of order now! It'll take me forever to put that back… anatomy analysis… I knew I should have…"

For a brief time, I watched this redheaded scatterbrain ramble to himself before he looked up and spotted me once again.

"A-ah! Are you mad? I'm sorr–arg!"

The boy clutched his stomach anxiously, taking deep breaths to calm himself.

"Are… you okay there?"

I tried my  _best_  not to narrow my eyes condescendingly, but this kid was honestly  _pathetic_. While I barely escaped my own sarcasm, I occupied myself with helping him pick up his papers off of the dirty ground.

"Y-yeah…" The boy stared at me contently before scrambling to pick up the rest of the papers, but I caught a glimpse of something that she couldn't ignore on the front page, sixth line, third word of his research paper that appeared to be for a chemistry class.

A comma splice.

"The hell–did  _you_  write this?"

The boy shrunk in his preppy uniform right before my eyes as I continued reading through it for any other obvious errors.

"Y-yes… what–what's wrong with it?"

My eyes sped through every line, speed-reading for more errors as other people walked around the small mess that was made of stray paper on their way home from work or school.

"…You even managed to misspell the word 'synthesis'. I didn't know that it was a thesis was a sin… 'sinthesis'…"

Honestly, I stared at this piece of work in amazement now, wondering how it was possible to screw up  _that_  horrendously.

"What…! No, no you're wrong!"

The boy snatched the paper from me, nearly leaving me with a paper cut, and reread it quickly. His deep-green eyes scanning the paper just as I had, before the defiant look vanished from his face just as quickly as it had come.

"I didn't know there were any errors! I had to hurry and get it done so I could study for anatomy…"

I stared at the kid as menacingly as I could muster up for only a moment longer before deciding to let it go. After all, it wasn't my grade and therefore it really wasn't my problem.

_I've got my own problems that I've got to worry about; particularly my mother skinning me alive._

"C-could you edit it for me? I mean, you saw the errors and…"

"What?" I stared at him until he shrunk in his uniform again. Gee, that sure was fun. "From the looks of you, you look like you go to that private school for the smart kids… what was it, Yumei Middle? Anyway, if you go to a prestigious school like that, why would you want someone from Namimori to edit it?"

That stopped the kid entirely in his tracks, but the fear in his gaze was replaced by a guarded stare.

"I might be smart, but that doesn't render me a stubborn piece of unused toilet paper when I know I need help."

"Unused toil–?  _Seriously_ ; what  _is_  your thought process?"

I had to  _fight_ to hold in a well-deserved laugh at this point. A smart student–an absolute  _geek_ –was formally asking me for help without even knowing my  _name_  (and vice versa)… and he expected me to  _relent_?

"Forget it!" I shook my head before turning around to walk back into TakeSushi without making a scene. "I'm sure you have other kids at your own school that'll help you; I don't even know your  _name_!"

The redhead looked slightly taken-aback, but he recovered quickly enough to take a quick breath before wrapping his arms around his stomach.

"Everyone's got their heads so far up their as-astrology textbooks that they don't bother with others… and m-my name is I-Irie Shoichi. What about you?"

"Kurokawa Hana."

So-called Shoichi nodded politely before finally getting to his feet, rubbing his stomach as if he was in pain. "O-okay, uh, now that we k-know each other, you can give my paper back to me before school tomorrow if you can. It's not due until Monday."

I almost threw the paper back at his sorry little face, but I stopped to think about what the hell I was doing.

_I haven't done ONE nice thing today. Maybe I SHOULD help this poor little mite..._

Even so, I wanted to ask why he kept gripping his stomach like that, but I went with my better judgment and tried my best to ignore it as I forced myself to...  _play nice._

"Actually, I can probably be done before seven tonight if I get home by five-ish. Where do you live?"

That question threw poor Irie Shoichi for a loop as he jerked his head backward in surprise. "W-why do you need to know that…?"

"Well, so I can give you your paper so you can start working on it immediately. Is that a problem?"

Shoichi paused before gripping his papers and books tightly, as if they were the only things that he could hold tightly onto.

"My mother doesn't want any girls over at my house…"

"…You just keep getting more pathetic over time, don't you?" I asked flatly, pinching the bridge of my nose as hard as I could. "That's not even sad anymore; that's a whole new level of pitiful."

Without allowing the redhead to answer, I picked myself up and dusted off my uniform before combing a pale hand through my hair and taking the disgraceful chemistry paper off of Shoichi's hands.

"Alright, fine. Meet me in front of my school tomorrow if you wish to have your paper back."

* * *

"Hannie, I'm home! Oh, and today was such a pain; can you imagine having to deal with the most irritating co-workers while attempting to actually finish work?"

Akahana, came through the door at about nine; just when she said she would via email. Her dark-brown hair and icy eyes were only friendly-looking like usual, but I knew that they would not stay friendly for long… not after I told her about my detention earlier that day. While I had finished editing Shoichi's pitiful paper, I only waited painfully for my mother to come home from work to tell her  _all_  about my day, only to have to deal with my father for about a week the day after.

"I'm sure that was great, mom, but I've gotta tell you something…" I started, but Akahana only hushed me quietly. "I already know. Your principal emailed me about your disturbance… and I say it was very well-deserved.  _However_ , that doesn't mean you should have done it. Don't let this turn into last year, Hannie."

Last year was a  _ball_ ; my biggest fault that year was when I destroyed a substitute teacher's hopes and dreams (by total accident this time!) and accidently let it slip that she was teaching the subject all wrong. Little did I know that it would lead to me getting an earful in front of both the principal and my parents because of my willingness to point out simple holes in the curriculum.

"Alright, fine. It won't turn out like last year."

"Good," Akahana smiled before walking away to take her nightly shower. "We'll have to tell your father about that tomorrow, though, Hannie. He'll be home when you come home from school, okay?"

I froze; it was something that I hadn't really thought about prior until now. The dread cloaked me, but I allowed my gaze to drift back to the heavily-edited paper that sat underneath the fading light of the dying lamp beside the fireplace. It was ultimately destroyed with editing; almost every paragraph warranted a major error.

That sight was the symbol of nothing but an image of two teens side-by-side, brought together by an accident (or, clumsiness on one of their parts):

An easily-annoyed, trouble-seeking, average girl and a patient, cautious, brainiac boy becoming friends… acquaintances, even?

Unlikely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> Yamamoto seems… different. Why's that?
> 
> Well, I'm not a fan of the whole dumb!Yamamoto that other people seem to always do because (personally) he seems like one of the smartest people in all of KHR. I can't say too much right now, but all I'm going to say is that he's supposed to be OOC-like right now.
> 
> Irie Shoichi?
> 
> One of the most underrated and forgotten characters in the whole of KHR. I decided to make him a part of the story, and I think we all know what this might mean. Also, since this is an AU-like thing, Irie will hold a rather important role in my plot, and please know that many things may be switched around involving this kid. (in other words: there are some questions that I can't answer unless you wanna know the plot) (in other other words, this kid will have some things changed about him, so if it's confusing now, I don't blame you).
> 
> What about the 'fears' that Hana is supposed to receive that you mentioned in the first chapter?
> 
> Woah, woah! Hold your horses; I can't introduce everything in one chapter! That leaves nothing for you guys to chew on! Don't worry; I haven't forgot about them and hopefully it'll be worth it once I find a convenient place to put it in!
> 
> Um… where are we at in the KHR storyline?
> 
> Well, since this is an AU, I've been changing some things around which includes some of the timeline (KEEP THIS IN MIND), but it is most definitely before the Varia Arc at this moment.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	3. Wisteria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Bridge chapter (a chapter that is intentionally short to lead into an arc). This chapter starts out boring but then it morphs into "wtf" and then it's over. I'm sorry in advance for the abrupt ending.

_Flashback:_

_An easily-annoyed, trouble-seeking, average girl and a patient, cautious, brainiac boy becoming friends… acquaintances, even?_

_Unlikely._

* * *

Chapter Three: Wisteria

_Flora records indicate wisteria has been known to live up to 100 years and even older (there is a 1200 year old wisteria tree in Japan). Recognizable by their purple flowers and bright green leaves that accompany them. The symbolism of wisteria in the Victorian age dealt a warning of clinging love and understanding that love is the fruit, but our obsession with it will be as choking as the vine._

_Meaning: welcome, longevity, love, endurance, and/or exploration._

* * *

"…Oh, come on."

I stared at the error-ridden paper that I held in my pale hand. Once more, I was confronted with Shoichi's near-subpar grammar skills. After our first interaction five days prior, it had almost seemed like I had become his personal editor… not that that was an accomplishment by any means.

"Is it… really  _that_  bad? It took me three hours to come up with it!"

Shoichi's red hair shone in the light as the two of us trudged toward his apartment. His mother was at work in construction from Mondays to Saturdays from nine to five. Within this somewhat friendship, there was only one deal that had been made between us; I had to be gone by the time Shoichi's mother walked right through that front door. That was all.

While I could have brought Kyoko and Yamamoto with me today, the both of them had their own lives; Kyoko with an important family dinner where her relatives had come into town and Yamamoto had to attend a game that evening.

"It's pretty bad, Shoichi. Where'd you get this grammar if you go to Yumei Middle? Are you just doing it to see if I can edit it for you at this point, or…?"

"You  _know_  that's not true, Hana!"

I managed to giggle; I had been in trouble today as well, getting sent to the principal's office for my mouth again. While I narrowly avoided detention, I had to watch said principal phone my home and my father had picked up. All I knew was that there would be hell to pay when I got home. However, spending two hours with Shoichi would distract me for just long enough to forget about it.

_Hopefully._

"Wait a minute," I stopped the conversation as a thought raced through my head. "Why doesn't your mom allow you to have girls over at your place, anyway? Is she scared you're going to engage in some illicit activities? Not that you  _could;_  she's gotta know you're incapable of that feat…"

"What?" Shoichi gasped, stumbling in his sneakers and regaining his ground, staring at me in surprise. "No! It's not like that, I-I swear!" The kid fumbled for his words as he struggled to hold his chemistry book close to his chest as he blubbered on: "My mother doesn't… she thinks that people will take advantage of me, and she dislikes even the mention of a girl coming from me. I'm not sure why; I guess it's always been like that."

"Really? Tough."

I sympathized with Shoichi for a moment. That  _had_  to be annoying as all hell; having someone who disliked you hanging around with certain people being someone you cannot disobey. While I'm not quite in that situation, I quickly thought back to my situation with my family and my own father.

_How great would it be for him to finally leave? If only it was today; we've got two more days until he's overseas again… it can't come any sooner. If I have to spend any more time with that stranger in my house, I'll explode._

"Say," Shoichi pulled to a stop to stare at me, the brown-haired girl who walked beside him, lost in her irritable thoughts. "What's it like in your family? Hopefully your parents aren't as strict–"

"Nah," I answered coolly, pulling myself away from the distance that I began to create between myself and my brand-new friend.

Well, 'friend'.

"They're not strict like your mom. They just always seem to be busy, which gives me a ton of alone time."

It wasn't a lie; my mother Akahana was so fixated with her desk job that she would work on leftover paperwork at the dining room table while we ate dinner together, and my father… was a different story.

"That's good," Shoichi mumbled. "After all, they recognize that you need your own space… right? My mother doesn't… do that…"

I murmured in agreement, but I couldn't help but wonder; what must go on in the Irie family.

The pair of us took a left turn to a rather lavish apartment building with minimal greenery in front of it, decorating the front doors with its beauty and contrast to the grayness of the building. It had all become familiar to me within the last few days, as I spent two hours after school in this huge building with Shoichi.

I entered the building first, racing with a lagging Shoichi to the green elevator which opened to us without even the push of a button, hosting a woman with a fur coat over her shoulders and red lipstick that shone in the obvious lights.

After this becoming a daily occurrence, the stares lasted less time and the two of us threw ourselves into the carpeted elevator and stared at ourselves in the mirror… all of the way up until the sixth floor, where the fifth door on the left opened to Shoichi's simplistic living room. While a two-story apartment was rare in the town of Namimori, Shoichi was proud to say that his mother could afford one to house him in the one room that happened to be up the stairs.

We climbed up the cream-colored stairs to Shoichi's small room, where mysterious papers flew about the room with the gust of wind that the door created when it opened.

"Okay, I'll go ahead and the set of pens that–that you like. My mother likes them, too."

Shoichi shuffled off and left me alone in his small, messy room. He hadn't made his green bed; the sheets were splayed every which way on his mattress. The desk that his laptop sat on was an absolute pigsty; miscellaneous papers spread over all of the available space that his laptop did not take up and broken pencils littered the vicinity. An iPod lay on top of his pillow beside a large pair of headphones, but before I could even wonder what song was on before he had taken off for school, I was distracted by Shoichi's clumsiness.

He had stumbled back into the room, appearing to have tripped over his own stairs as he whipped back around to face me shyly, immediately shrinking in his own clothes as he did so.

"I've got them." I turned to Shoichi, who held a plethora of colorful pens in his hands. "Which color do you want to use today?"

"Let's go with purple," I answered casually, catching the purple pen that flew my way. "I've never met your mom. What's she like again?"

Shoichi tensed on the subject of his family, and I immediately regretted asking about it. "W–well, my mom doesn't like the idea of me going to any average school for my college studies, so she tells me to work extra hard in school so I can go to a good school… she doesn't like me mentioning girls…"

"Why  _is_  that?" I clicked the purple pen as she took to the paper she had yet to edit. "There's gotta be a reason for that."

_Ducking from questions doesn't help either of us; sooner or later, he's going to have to face the reality, and I might as well get my curiousity out of the way. That's where snooping comes in, and that's what makes people snakes._

"W–well…" Shoichi's voice wavered enough to cause me to look up, but he had turned away, rummaging through his closet for something. "I have… well, had an older sister, and she was my mom's favorite… but when my dad left, she left with him. I guess that's what started it…"

He griped for something in his closet, digging through comic books to find something, but he pulled out a small picture that didn't look entirely recent, due to its bent corners.

"Here's a picture of her and I."

A girl with auburn-colored hair stood next to Shoichi in the picture with a couple of baskets in their hands carrying plastic eggs. The girl wasn't too much older, but Shoichi looked much like a child with marshmallows stuck in his cheeks.

"Your cheeks are so puffy…" I laughed when Shoichi's face turned a rosy color, creeping ever-so-closer to the red-ish hue that was his hair.

"I know!" He snatched the picture away and carefully piled things on top of it in his closet; things such as clothes, books, and paper. "My mom can't know I still have that picture; she thinks that she threw it away, and just the mention of my sister makes her angry… very angry… I guess that's why girls are off-limits. She never used to be like this."

I watched Shoichi close his closet door all-too-soon, and that's when I took a quick glance to my right. A box about the size of a shoe box stared back at me from the shadows underneath the redhead's desk. I reached for it, pulling on the corner gently.

"What's this?"

Shoichi whipped around and it was only a moment's notice before he snatched my hand away before letting go of it and pushing the box safely back under his desk, sputtering and flailing like a fish out of water.

"DON'TTOUCHTHATWHATDOYOUTHINKYOU'REDOING?"

" _Well_ ," I scoffed before grabbing at Shoichi's essay that had flown off of my lap in the midst of the commotion. "I didn't know that something so  _obviously_  out in the open was untouchable. Sorry."

It was silent as I picked up the purple pen once again and circled the word 'very' within Shoichi's text, purposely keeping the thought of the box out of my mind.

"…What's that mean?" Shoichi had peeked over my shoulder at the obvious purple circle on his paper.

"Word choice. 'Very' is  _very_  weak when it comes to word choice in an essay. Why don't you try something like 'extremely' or 'tremendously'? It'd make you look smarter."

The silence was prevalent once again until Shoichi broke it with a question that I didn't see coming:

"How do you  _know_  all of that?"

"Common sense, really," I explained while in the process of circling yet another 'very'. "Honestly, I do love to write. It's one of the rare things that I get to do for  _me_ and I do it all of the time. I guess it carries over into everything I do."

Shoichi gingerly reached for his glasses and took them off of his face, cleaning them with his shirt.

"I feel that–that way about music… I love the band Blood and Peppers, but I'm not sure if I want to be a musician or not, I mean something happened awhile ago and I'm not sure–"

A door slammed shut and a sense of uneasiness fell over me as I stood up, abandoning the purple pen that I held in my hand and allowing the essay to slide off of my lap as I did so.

"What was–?"

"My mom! Oh  _no_ ; why is she home so early?! This is bad…" The redhead whipped his head around frantically, trying to place his thoughts into order, but he only seemed to panic even more as the stairs near his room began to creak. "H–here! Take the box and hide in the closet! She  _can't_  know that I still have it!"

Shoichi shoved the mysterious box into my arms (which it was surprisingly heavy) and I was forced into the closet in a flurry of panic. The door shut and darkness filled my vision as I ceased my breathing for multiple seconds at a time, just in case Shoichi's mother came into his room.

_What did he mean by 'she can't know that I still have it'? What's inside of this thing that's so off-limits, anyway?_

In slipped my hand into the surprisingly-heavy box, and at first touch, I could feel some sort of bottle with some liquid inside of it. It being no use to attempt to figure out what it was, I contented herself to listening to the voices right outside my redheaded friend's room:

"…home early today, mom…"

"I had a meeting… schoolwork?"

My hand wandered around, faintly touching a piece of paper, but I rummaged past that in my fearful curiosity. It was only then when I felt my hand touch something cold.

Cold, round, and metallic.

_The hell is this thing?_

"Shoichi, what is  _with_ you today?" An irritable feminine voice pierced through me for the first time, giving me a clear idea of just how close this woman was to finding my hiding place.

_She has to be only feet from where I'm standing right now! What if she smells my body spray?_

I quickly pulled my hand out of the box with the metallic, round thing in my hand with the clear intention of getting over my curiosity. However, I sucked in my breath as the voices got louder and closer.

"Nothing, mom! I've just been working on my schoolwork like you tell me to!"

The shrill pitch that he spoke with emitted nothing but utter terror, and sorrow swept through me for a moment, washing away any fear that I had in this current situation. At least one of my parents did their best to understand me, rather than in Shoichi's situation, where one of them was gone and the other scared him to death.

I ran my fingers over the metallic substance once again, and my heart seemed to stop as it slowly slipped out of my hands. My world slowed as I waited for it to make a sound and give my position away.

I waited.

_Hit the ground already._

And waited.

_Just get it over with._

_And waited._

_I am ready to be compromised._

There was nothing to greet me as I took a deep breath and prepared myself for explanining my presence in Shoichi's closet without giving him away, like any friend would. Assuming that we're even to be classified as friends. I mean, c'mon, I met the kid five days ago.

_Just open your eyes._ A feminine voice whispered inside of my head.  _There's nothing to be afraid of._

I opened my eyes as instructed, and whatever I had been expecting was no longer there.

There was nothing.

No sound.

No 'GET THE HELL OUT'… nothing.

It was pitch black, but it no longer felt as though I had been cramped up inside of a closet.

The only thing that took my attention away from the darkness was a faint ringing that echoed in my ears so weakly that I wasn't entirely sure I was actually hearing it or not.

In a matter of seconds, my eyes flew open once more as the ringing ceased, and I found myself staring into more darkness. Without being able to make a sound, I seemed to be drowning in the black, gasping and groping for something to hold onto. It was as if desperation was pulling me apart, even if I knew that this episode would not last longer than a few seconds, the loneliness had me begging to be able to snap out of it.

"Who the hell are you and why the hell are you here?"

The sound of those brisk words caused my eyes to open a third time, where the brightness of the room temporarily blinded me, but I snapped out of it when cold metal pressed against my forehead.

Fear left the usually-tough girl that I was useless as I was confronted with something that I hadn't ever been exposed to before; an ultimatum.

"Answer me... or I'll shoot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> What just happened?
> 
> That's what next chapter is for, silly goose. I was originally going to make this chapter a little bit longer, but then I decided that it would be a lot easier if I left everything to be explained next chapter. Horray for bridge chapters! Horray for jumping straight into this part of the plot! Horray for evil authoresses who decide to torture their readers with a cliffie!
> 
> Why is this chapter so short?
> 
> It's a bridge chapter! A chapter specifically catered to leading into the next arc. The next chapter is planned to be… well, in light of everything that will happen, pretty long. You can be sad that it's short, totally fine, but if I get a rage message about it, man, I'm fixing to go off about how I do this for me and how I don't get paid to do this for fun (in other words, I have no motivation other than my own happiness and your own).
> 
> How the hell did that even happen? -if I'm assuming what I think just happened-
> 
> Well, I know that Irie and Lambo had their thing about episode 70 in the anime (you know; where Lambo is a pain and he has to return the box that the Bovino family gave to his family because there were such nice things in it, but Shoichi couldn't seem to get it over there because of how insane the Sawada household was, so he kept the box a secret?), and we're before the Varia arc (probably in the daily life thing to be exact), so I'm screwing with the timeline a little bit to make it work. I hope that was a good hint... and keep in mind that this is an AU!
> 
> ~Teafully~


	4. Teasel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, violence, weapons, a longer chapter, sort-of boring (personally), exposition of this arc… the like.

_ Flashback: _

_"Who the hell are you and why the hell are you here?"_

_The sound of those brisk words caused my eyes to open a third time, where the brightness of the room temporarily blinded me, but I snapped out of it when cold metal pressed against my forehead._

_Fear left the usually-tough girl that I was useless as I was confronted with something that I hadn't ever been exposed to before; an ultimatum._

_"Answer me... or I'll shoot."_

* * *

Chapter Four: Teasel

_Any of various stout biennial plants of the genus Dipsacus, of Eurasia and North Africa, having prickly leaves and prickly heads of yellow or purple flowers. Used to produce a napped surface on wool and other fabrics._

_Meaning: misanthropy, cynicism, pessimism, doubt, and/or suspicion._

* * *

"Well? You're staring like you don't know what the hell you're doing, stupid kid. Who are you? A spy?"

I opened my mouth to answer the large brute that stood in my way. The coarse fur that was Shoichi's carpet had disappeared from beneath my toes and a slick, wooden floor had replaced it.

Nothing came out of my agape lips, and the man before me only toyed with what I knew was no toy. A real gun; more than likely stocked with  _real_  ammo that had a  _real_  potential to kill me. Just like in those god damn movies that I had seen but never really taken to heart. Frozen, I waited for the large man to lose his patience, even though every muscle in her body screamed at me to run.

_Stay, die._

_Run, live._

_Speak, live._

_Silence, die._

The broken thoughts clouded together within my mind, making it nearly impossible to tell left from right and right from wrong. The gun shone in the light as the large man became clearer to my eye; his golden eyes – yes,  _golden_ – burned into me with every waking second that seemed to pass. They contrasted beautifully from his dark hair and his tanned skin, of which happened to be the hue of a freshly-brewed cup of breakfast tea… the same kind that I had had that very morning before I left for school.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at? Are you mocking me? I'll blast your brains out of your goddamn head!"

The patience that this man possessed, who didn't seem any older than his early twenties, was beginning to slip from the state of little to the state of nothing. I opened my mouth once again, closing my eyes shut as I stumbled away from the likes of him.

"I'm not doing anything wrong!"

"To hell with that; how the hell'd you get in here? We're under strict lockdown and we  _have_  been for the past week and a half! How could some stupid kid like  _you_ ," he waved his gun with emphasis to and from my face, hardly missing my nose. "make it into  _our_  headquarters without any motive?"

Okay, who was on the hard drugs here?

I haven't done anything wrong; I had only been hiding from Shoichi's mother so that my friend and I wouldn't get caught in the midst of our conversation, but now I was standing in front of a man with a  _gun_  who was threatening to shoot my brains out… and then there's another question:

Where the hell was the closet that I had been hiding in?

Logic itself was becoming distorted as I struggled to keep my voice steady: "I don't know what you're going on about! I was in the closet and now I'm in an open room!"

The golden-eyed man let out a breath exasperatedly as he cautiously approached me, getting close enough for me to smell his breath, which caressed my face and left only the scent of licorice lingering in the air.

" _Bullshit._  Kid, you're dead! I'll feed your decomposing body to the rats that live in the sewers if you don't tell me what the  _fuck_  you're doing in here!"

His hand tightened instinctively on his weapon when I took a deep breath. "I was just having a conversation with Shoichi and now I'm stuck here!"

The man's golden eyes widened before he relaxed his weapon-wielding arm for a second without putting it down. He proceeded to look me up and down, muttering something under his breath before speaking directly to me:

"Shoichi?"

I watched him relax for a moment, but he tensed once more when I began to speak:

"Yes, Irie Shoichi. He's some nerd kid that I met the other day who asks me to edit his papers for grammatical errors, but now you're pestering me and waving that…  _thing_  in front of my face like a madman!"

I couldn't even seem to bring myself to utter the word ' _gun_ '. While I don't know firsthand how much damage that those weapons could cause in the hands of the wrong person, I  _do_  know that guns are used for execution, whether it be person or animal.

The man lowered his gun down to his sides and stared at me with the most bewildered stare I've ever seen. It was almost as if I had spoken an entirely different language to him for a split second and he was asking me to explain myself, but he shook it off before asking a surprising question in a much quieter, curious voice:

"How do you know Shoichi?"

"I just told you!" I felt like a loaded pistol as I began to get frustrated now; this man was pestering me for no reason, not to mention that I have to somehow find my way back to Shoichi.

_Maybe I fell through a trap door or something..._

"We met a couple of days ago and I edit his essays for him, and even though his grammar is utter shit, we still get along! Can I go home now?"

"What the hell are you taking me for, a fool?" The man asked suddenly, looking much more dangerous than before as I got a quick glimpse of two piercings on one of his ears when he shifted positions to hold up his left hand to his face, scratching his chin. "What business does he have with some kid? You're a  _spy_ , aren't you?"

My head was beginning to spin. I can't believe what the hell I'm hearing.

"What kinda stuff are you on and where do I get some?" At this point, I can't even resist the sass in my tone as I laughed it off as crudely as I could, assuming that whatever was happening was some sort of fluke. "I don't know shit about spying. Besides, how do  _you_  know Shoichi? He doesn't seem like the type of guy to talk to strangers."

"We're not strangers to him, and if you keep pretending like you know him, I'll break your neck." He responded sharply, cracking every knuckle in his left hand one-by-one, as if he was threatening harm to me silently. "Now, tell me what you're doing here or I'll shoot you."

_I wish he would stop saying that…_

Uneasiness crept into my skin, giving me goose bumps; whoever this guy was, he was making me nervous real efficiently. I don't need to be an expert to see that he's dangerous, and he sure acts like he is for those who can't seem to get the message. Whatever's going on here, he means business.

"I don't know!" I burst out, my frustration reaching its peak. "I'm just looking for Shoichi and I don't know where the hell I am!"

Every muscle in my body told me to run again; wherever I was and whatever I'm doing… everything within the vicinity of me seemed dangerous.

However, this man with the golden eyes–Golden-eyes, as I had elected to mentally address him–rolled his eyes in frustration that was probably synonymous to watching a toddler pitch up a temper tantrum. Of all things that I had expected to happen within the next few seconds, my guess would have been for him to fly off the handle and call me a liar. However, I never expected for him to do what he did:

"Ah, screw it. He'll know what the hell to do with a lying little troll like you. Fine, come with me. Pull anything and you won't even know what hit you when you're laying in a pool of your own blood."

Golden-eyes had cooled down, and I decided that I wasn't about to wait until he got all revved up once more, so I followed his lead… even  _if_  I had to bite my tongue at his 'lying little troll' remark.

* * *

Shoichi breathed out a sigh as his mother finally disappeared from his room, leaving in haste while shouting back at him that his homework had better be finished or he'd never see the light of day.

" _How frustrating…"_

The redhead raked his fingers through his hair, adjusting his glasses as they began to slip off of his head, and he continued toward the closet slowly, wondering just how Hana had managed to be so quiet throughout the time that his mother spent yelling into his ear.

_"With her personality, I'd have thought that she would have come straight out, ready to give my mother a taste of her own medicine or something to that effect... I'm surprised she stayed this calm..."_

"Hana," Shoichi quietly edged toward the door handle. "Um, I–I think I can find a way to sneak you out, but we had better hurry, or she'll come back…"

He reached for the closet door timidly, expecting the girl to burst from the loins of the wooden door any second, but not even the sound of her breathing made it through the wood.

"Huh?"

Shoichi opened the door quietly and slowly, expecting his friend to jump out and scare him… or even worse, be incapacitated on the carpet floor, but what he  _wasn't_  expecting to see confronted him in the moment.

The closet, empty as can be, stared back at Shoichi as the realization dawned on him.

Hana wasn't here.

She was gone.

* * *

I forced myself to stay still as the golden-eyed man took hold of my hair, pulling me through a dark corridor in the building that I had suddenly appeared in. While there were lights in the hall on the walls, they weren't on, and therefore, it was like I was swimming in that darkness once more. Questions swirled in my mind in no particular order, but when I looked up at the man who was practically  _dragging_  me down this dark hall, I could see a deep tiredness in his eyes… and it wasn't the type that went away with sleep.

"You look like you've had a rough day," I tiptoed around the subject and took a deep breath to make myself seem more professional than I had been earlier, trying not to make him angrier than he probably already was. "It's not me, I hope?"

"If it  _was_  you, you'd be dead." Golden-eyes betrayed a hint of something other than anger in that moment when the strength in his voice faltered on the word  _dead_.

"Give it a rest with the 'death' and 'I'll kill you' crap," I jerked my head in his grasp, trying not to rip all of my hair out of my head. "It's not like you'd actually joke about that stuff if it happened to one of your family members or something…"

Golden-eyes let go of my hair and whipped me around to face him. I shivered when I witnessed the fire in his eyes as he forcefully grabbed my hair once more.

"Yeah, sure; it's not like I don't  _live_  with it every damn day or anything. I suggest you not try me, kid. I'm not in the mood for this shit."

It was then when I noticed the waver in his voice, the slight break in the strength that he had shown me so far. There was something wrong, I realized as my brow crinkled together in thought, and what it could have been was well beyond my comprehension.

"Wait here."

Golden-eyes instructed me when the two of us came to a stop only paces later, and I did as I had been told even though if I  _did_  pose an actual threat, Golden-eyes would have just made a huge mistake.

_If I was an actual menace to society, I could have run off by now without being told to stay still… or maybe it's because I'm just a 'kid'. Adults and their labels…_

Even though the prospect of moving and walking around like I was specifically told  _not_  to do was extremely tempting, I knew that if I so much as  _thought_  about it, I would probably end up shot.

The thought of that caused me to shiver:

Being shot.

The act of shooting a gun, even.

Maybe even as far as guns in general.

I had never truly felt uneasy until I had watched Golden-eyes hold that gun in front of my face, waving it around as if he were actually going to kill me. Oddly enough, it wasn't the "killing" that put me on-edge; it was the gun itself. How it was manufactured to kill people and/or animals. No matter what way you spun it, that was what it was for. Self-defense, hunting… it all led down the road of death. Instantaneous death if you wanted to get more specific with it.

"Okay, kid. Follow me."

Golden-eyes had reappeared, and my dark eyes wandered to the holster on his hip. The dark weapon stared straight back at me, but I refused to allow him to sense my fear. Instead, I stood up straight and followed him silently down the hall to a rather decorated door. While there was nothing telling on the door, I could hear music humming softly through the cracks in it.

"I've got this kid. She claims that she knows you, but I feel like that's bullshit, so I'll let you decide for yourself."

Golden-eyes opened the door for me, shoving me inside before allowing himself in, but he rolled up his sleeves as he took a hold of my hair once more.

"What; are you scared I'm going to run away?" I asked through gritted teeth, but I received no answer as another man came out from what I assumed to be a closet.

His bright-red hair shone in the fluorescent lights, but it was in that very instant that I recognized who the man was.

A small, tight whisper weaseled through my lips as I took in the much more mature facial features of the scared, mama's boy that I had only met five days ago.

"I didn't even realize you could get even nerdier than before."

The thick-rimmed, dark-as-night glasses that he wore framed his face well, compared to the thinner, beach-sand tan ones that I had become used to in the short five days that we had known each other. Those bright-green eyes that I recognized were the same, but only shadowed by doubt and something else that I couldn't quite read into.

_This couldn't be the same kid that I saw only moments ago, right? I've got to be going insane. There's no way that that's even possible._

Our eyes met and I jerked away from Golden-eye's sudden tightening grip on the dead cells upon my head.

"Want me to get rid of it or not?"

"'It' yourself." I huffed, earning another jerk of my head.

A sharp retort came across my mind, but I stopped myself just in time as the familiar, cold metal pressed against the back of my neck, sending a shiver all through my hair and my toes.

"I haven't been  _joking_ , kid. Don't test me."

The lulling hum of music in the room was almost soothing.

_Almost_.

It's like the feeling of comfort some morticians get around the bodies of the deceased; the room is full of people with different scars, stories, and goals… but they are slowly decomposing as the minutes drone on. The only sound was that of the calming music, filling the voids where the sounds of voices cannot.

"Dante, calm yourself. Seriously; it's just a kid. Maybe it's lost."

The man that I knew to be Irie Shoichi shrugged me off, hardly giving me another glance. It was almost as if he had other things on his mind that were much more pressing than I.

It started with a giggle, which morphed into a snicker, and finally took its full form as a laugh. No matter the seriousness of his tone, I outright refused in my inner mind to believe that  _this man_  was the  _same boy_  who had the quiet, awkward sense of humor that I knew.

"What are you laughing at?"

Golden-eyes–Dante as Shoichi had addressed him–had reacquired his tight grip on my hair as I continued to laugh. There was no way that he had grown to be as tall as he was in such a short time and there was no reason why he had to act like he was somebody. As far as  _I'm_  concerned, he's just a boy who had no idea how to talk to women... or  _anyone_ , to be honest.

"How did  _this_  happen?" I asked as the laughter died out and I replaced it with my wits.

Shoichi knitted his eyebrows together, but his gaze didn't leave my face. It was almost as if he was searching for an answer, but he kept his mouth shut as he silently moved toward his bed and picked up something that was lying on his bedside table. I couldn't see what it was and I didn't even have a guess as he stole another glance at me and turning straight back to Dante.

"I'll take care of this."

Dante obeyed immediately, taking his leave and placing his weapon back into the holster on his hip.

"Alright. I'm gonna go get myself some lunch."

The golden-eyed man backed out of the room calmly, whistling down the hallway as if it–the whole confrontation I had had with him–had never happened. The silence grew between Shoichi and I, and that only made it even  _more_  awkward than it already was.

_Does he even recognize me?_

It was the instant when Golden-eye's footsteps disappeared down the hall when Shoichi pushed past me and opened the door quietly, sneaking out and turning back to me briefly.

"Come with me."

Temporarily stunned by the lack of feeling in his voice, I followed him like I was told, but suspicion soon crept up from my unconscious mind as I followed him through the spiraling hallway.

"Where are we going?" I wondered aloud, but the redhead declined an answer as he hurried ahead, not even bothering to check if I was still following him.

Against my better judgment, I followed him as closely as I could, following him through every door that he decided to dash behind.

Left.

Right.

Straight.

Right.

Right.

No, that's wrong. Back up and go left.

Left once more.

Straight.

Straight.

Right.

Straight.

_Just how big is this place? When are we going to stop?_

Stairs spiraled upward as Shoichi skidded to a stop and checked to make sure I was still following him. After that quick glance, he continued up the stairs, skipping as many steps as he could muster.

"You've got to be joking," I muttered as I took my first step upward.

I started up the steps slowly, but when I looked up and saw the glare that Shoichi gave me from the top of the stairs, I picked up my pace, but when I finally got to the top, he was off again. This time, though, it wasn't very far: he took a quick left turn to a seemingly-empty hallway and he approached a door as he stopped. This door, instead of being intricately decorated like Shoichi's, it was a plain mahogany tint without anything special presented on it. The knob even looked to be misused and ready to pop right off.

Shoichi slowly turned the knob and the door let out a wail, but he snuck his way in and I followed. However, he shut the door behind me and leaned against it to prevent me from making my way around him and leaving... assuming that I would have when I realized what he had been holding in his hand the whole time.

I spotted a familiar shine as Shoichi revealed his own gun, and I thought back to the moment when he had picked up something before asking me to come with him. My jaw slacked, but I shook myself and refused to look at the gun, only staring around the empty, dusty room.

_He won't shoot me... he couldn't..._

The floor was covered in a thick coat of dust, and instead of this floor being like the ones downstairs where they were shiny and sleek, this one was cracking and creaky. The only things inside of the room seemed to be a couple of old dressers with beautiful inlays, a dusty couch with a cover over it, and a bed that I could guess was full of bugs and, you guessed it, more dust. The one window in this room was a hexagon that was placed a little out of my reach, but it surprisingly lit up the whole room.

"How did you get here?"

I turned back to Shoichi, whose gun shivered in his grip as he pointed it my way.

_He won't shoot me._

"I don't know." I shot back, forcing myself to stop looking at the killing machine in his hand. "Could you put that thing down? You're making me nervous."

My voice shook with effort, but Shoichi surprisingly relented and lowered his weapon, allowing his hand to slack along with it. He noticeably relaxed once the weapon was out of the picture, but it appeared that he had more to say:

"Hana, you know who I am, right?"

Shoichi appeared to be choosing his words carefully, lowering his voice to a whisper. I nodded slowly before reaching up and smoothing down my ruffled, dark brown hair.

"Irie Shoichi. We met five days ago, but…"

"…you stepped into the closet and dropped one of the Ten-Year Bullets that was in that box. I remember that day."

Suspicion began to grow in my mind within an instant. How did he  _know_? This  _had_  to be a figment of my imagination at this point. How did he  _know_  about what had happened  _just now?_

"How do you know?" It was only a whisper that slivered out of my mouth, but Shoichi stood up straight and his voice was strong as he replied:

"You've traveled ten years in the future, Hana. I'm twenty-five years old right now. It's real, don't worry, but you shouldn't be here. Not for longer than a couple minutes, at least."

_It's been longer than a couple minutes, hasn't it?_

"Am I supposed to trust you?" I asked carefully, eyeing the gun in his slender hand. "How do I know that you're telling the truth?"

After all, by all accounts of logic, what he was telling me had just happened was practically impossible.

"I knew who you were, didn't I?" Shoichi stood in front of the door, standing up straight without a hitch in his posture, unlike the Shoichi that I know... who is  _supposedly_  back in the past.

"As if that's enough to make me trust  _any_  of the bullshit you're spewing. It's going to take a bit more than that to make me trust you."

I watched a glimpse of concern pass through his features, but it was nothing more than a glimpse as he looked down at me with confidence.

"My grammar is still absolute shit, and if it helps, I break my glasses in frustration when I can't figure out why you're gone for three hours in my closet."

"You can't prove that second part," I retorted quickly. "Does that mean that I get to get out of here in three hours?"

The man faltered for a moment and he genuinely shrugged his shoulders, wrapping his arms around himself as he kicked his foot up against the plain door.

"I don't know. Honestly, I'm not sure why you're here in the first place other than being reckless like always, but if that was the case, you're here for something. I'll probably need to do more research on it."

The degree of respect and lack of scorn that he showed me appeared to be characteristic; something that the Shoichi I knew would do. He quietly stood up straight as I stood atop of the covered couch to get a look out of the window as he spoke.

As the glare diminished, I caught glimpses of trees and flowers scattered about, telling me that it was hardly autumn; the trees had just began to turn color and the lack of chirping birds told me that it was getting colder.

"Where are we?"

"We're still in Namimori, just… a different part of it than you're used to, I suppose."

It was as if he was attempting to keep everything under wraps. After all, I was in the  _future_! Just a simple question could tell me how my life was going to shape up!

_If he thinks that I'm going to pass that up, he must not know me very well after all!_

"How  _is_  the future, anyway?" I started out guarded; trust wasn't something that this 'Shoichi' had earned easily (or at all, really…), but maybe if he told me things that were probable about my future (if he still knows me here), I could possibly decode exactly what was going on here.

Shoichi adjusted his glasses carefully, staring straight through me as we locked eyes.

"I'm not sure."

"Liar," I jumped into my own offense. "You're  _here_! You  _have_  to know  _something_!"

"No, I didn't mean it in  _that_  way," Shoichi corrected himself quickly. "I'm just not sure how we  _are_. Things are slow as of now, but I'm sure we'll be fine."

There was a certain degree of hidden meaning behind those words that Shoichi so carefully uttered, but I was reluctant to read into them just yet. Too many questions (and not choosing them carefully) could result in not getting any answers whatsoever.

"If you don't mind me asking, what am I like in the future? Do you still know me? Are we still friends?"

_If I ask a lot of basic questions, maybe he'll be more prone to tell me more in-depth stuff._

Shoichi adjusted his glasses for the second time. "You and your sarcasm don't exactly change, and yes, we're still friends, if that's what you'd call it."

"What do you mean 'if that's what you'd call it'?"

I griped for an answer, but Shoichi only shrugged once again, this time turning away for a moment. "I'm not sure."

_What did I expect? I guess he's always been this uncertain with things! 'I'm not sure' this, 'I'm not sure' that… did I seriously expect to get anything out of him?_

My frustration came down as quickly as it had flared up, and Shoichi took advantage of the silence by speaking out:

"I'm going to start my research on how you can be in the future for this long. All that I ask of you is to not let anyone else know you're here. No one ever enters this room and this room is not monitored, so you won't be detected as long as you don't move around too much. I'll bring you up some food and a couple of blankets, but just  _don't_  be reckless and get seen. Dante probably won't even remember that he saw you; the dumb lampshade doesn't even remember his own name sometimes, so you should be relatively safe. I'll take care of the rest."

"Now I  _know_  it's you!" I laughed a little bit, allowing my muscles to loosen up. "You and your shitty sense of humor!"

Though, the image of Golden-eyes surfaced in my mind anyway, even when I was hardly focused on him at all. It could be true; if he had a terrible memory, then he may not remember finding me and threatening to kill me.

_But how do you just simply FORGET that you found an 'intruder' and waved a gun in front of their face, accusing them to be a liar and a spy?_

"Um, can I ask you a question? Last one, I promise." I quickly stopped laughing as I formed a question that I  _knew_  I wouldn't get another chance to ask.

Shoichi paused from walking out of the room, taking his hand off of the door knob. "Huh?"

"What is my  _life_  like in the future?"

There was a long pause of silence, and I feared for a moment that he wouldn't know what to say.

"It doesn't matter. You won't be able to change it, anyway."

The door shut quietly behind Shoichi, and I sat in a stunned silence that seemed to be so powerful that it could even stop time. What was so horrible that he would even decline to even  _speak_  about it? What would my life be coming to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
> 
> Those… those (and you'll see even more of them later... then again, I suppose the only one you've met so far is Dante) are some people that you will probably become very familiar with to be entirely honest, so yeah. Pick your favorite. Love them. Cherish them. Soon.
> 
> Is this… the plot?
> 
> Well, this is a part of the plot that I had never really thought over in my previous version (more like 'didn't put it in') and yeah. I feel like I've finally gotten all of the kinks out of my reasoning for everything that's going to happen, so hopefully I can write it in an engaging and not-boring way… this arc is going to be kind-of short, but not too short.
> 
> How did Hana manage to get here?
> 
> You know how Shoichi got some of those bullet things from the Bovino family (which I'm sure they didn't mean to give him) that he used to see what his future would be inside of said box? Well, long story short, she dropped one of those and this happened. (I made them bullet-looking things, by the way, because I couldn't remember what they actually looked like).
> 
> Wait a minute… where did TYL!Hana go?
> 
> Hmm, well, that's a difficult one. She didn't switch places with TYE!Hana, so it could (and I'm not saying that it does) imply something that I can't really say right now without it spoiling, I suppose… and I'm gonna let you guys use your imaginations for the moment, yo. I can't spill everything about my plot yet.
> 
> We're missing some of the main characters right now! When will people like Tsuna be introduced in your fic?
> 
> If not in this arc, but the next arc. I feel like people like Tsuna will be mentioned soon here, but if not, he will definitely have a bigger part in the next arc that I have planned (which isn't that far away!). Hold your horses! Also, in this arc, I can't necessarily have you all know everything that will be going on in that Future (because that would spoil the whole fic) so, feel free to post what you think, but I can't say whether you're right or wrong!
> 
> Important: What's with the definition of the chapter title at the top?
> 
> I went back through and edited all of my chapters to have the definitions of the flower and what they look like just for my readers! I thought it'd be cool if I did a little extra research for every chapter, you know? While some of the definitions I ad-lib from sources, some of them are completely dictionary definitions. I hope no one minds me being too creative for my own good…
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> Oh yeah; I do love the constructive criticism that you all are giving me! Usually I don't appreciate it because most of the time people say it in such a condescending way that makes me want to respond realllyyyy sarcastically and I have to physically hold myself back from my keyboard, but all of you don't do that and it's GREAT! Don't be afraid to tell me if something seems amiss, guys! I appreciate it!
> 
> ~Teafully~


	5. Oak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, weapons, guns, more characters, and more lame-Shoichi… because we all like that.

_Flashback:_

_"What is my life like in the future?"_

_There was a long pause of silence, and I feared for a moment that he wouldn't know what to say._

_"It doesn't matter. You won't be able to change it, anyway."_

_The door shut quietly behind Shoichi, and I sat in a stunned silence that seemed to be so powerful that it could even stop time. What was so horrible that he would even decline to even speak about it?_

_What would my life be coming to?_

* * *

Chapter Five: Oak

_While an oak tree itself is not a flower, it does produce small flowers that are designated into female flowers and male flowers in the spring. This tree's massive appearance was taken as a sign by the Celts to be honored for its endurance and noble presence. To the Celts, ancient Greeks, and Romans, wearing the leaves of an oak tree on their garments was a sign of special status and honor._

_Meaning:  loyalty, hospitality, friendliness, and/or generosity._

* * *

Irie Shoichi found himself at a loss when he stepped out of that doorway and back into the nearly-empty hallway. The dark wood hid everything, including the door that he had just stepped out of, from sight. The panic began to emancipate itself from his mind, forming into something much more terrifying; dread. The gun that he held, the one that he had taken extremely good care of ever since he had bought it, slipped continuously in his sweaty hand.

Forcing himself to keep his cool, he walked on, proceeding to answer his own questions aloud as he usually resulted to doing.

How exactly did she get here?

"The bullets, of course… but why is she  _still_  here? There has to be a reason for that… or maybe it's simply a mistake. How could a mistake be made by something like this? Was the bullet faulty?"

Logic seemed to conflict with every scenario that he came up with, but in all actuality, being able to go into the future at  _all_  was illogical.

"I need to work on throwing logic out the window because at this rate, anything's possible."

Shoichi had spoken to himself all of the way back to the safety of his own room, careful to go the roundabout way back to make sure that no one followed his route or suspected that he was up to something. After all, the lockdown that they were under was getting underneath everyone's skin and reason was beginning to become clouded by doubt and fear.

He pushed the door open and closed it behind himself, allowing his music to float over the top of his head and calm him down for a moment. Surely Hana–the one that he had aged with–would be okay.

"I wonder if what he said to her… maybe that has something to do with  _this_. He went too far this time and now…"

Quickly, Shoichi placed the gun onto his nightstand and scrambled around for a pen and some paper. Grabbing for his laptop, he quickly opened it up and smashed on the keyboard to take it out of sleep-mode and immediately hopped onto his research.

_Query: time travel_

The search came up with a general definition of time-travel… one that Shoichi and many other techies in this day and age had managed to disprove thousands of times over.

"' _Very limited support in theoretical physics' my ass. It's too bad we have to keep that under wraps, though. Time travel is strictly to be inaccessible to ordinary people, isn't it?"_

"You're up early."

A timid yet steady voice stopped Shoichi from typing a different query into the search bar at the top of the screen.

"Who is it that usually works himself into the deep hours of the night only to wake up around dinnertime?"

Turning around, Shoichi quickly rubbed his glasses furiously on his black t-shirt, but even with the blurriness of his sight he recognized one of his friends standing in the doorway to his room.

"Yeah, I woke up early today to get a head start on more work. What are you doing today, Rusty?"

Rusty – this boy was an individual indeed. While he was normally a soft-spoken and nonetheless quiet person in general, if he had something to say, he would say it. The light-brown hair that he possessed shaped his face quite nicely, and a fair amount of his hair did cover his right eye. It wasn't for any particular reason; more because he refused to cut his hair and needed a place to put it all. Even though his hair reached clear down his chin–nearly to his shoulders–Rusty would give one an earful with even the  _suggestion_  of a trim. One small braid hung from the left side of his head, tucked neatly behind the bangs on that side. Accompanying his long hair, he had a pair of big brown eyes to go with it, causing discrepancies about his gender wherever he went. Many others would be upset about said confusion about their gender, but Rusty often used it to his advantage.

"I've been working out a little bit… or attempting to. Dante has been showing me how a 'real man' does it… even though I'm almost one-hundred percent sure that he doesn't even know what a dumbbell  _is_. I said the word aloud asking him to hand it to me because he was using it and showing me how to use it, and he said "what'd you call me?" I  _still_  don't understand why he's like that. He let me take a short break, so I figured to see if you were awake yet."

Shoichi relaxed; Rusty was, and always has been, good company in stressful situations. Even though Rusty was twenty-four years old, his baby-face features gave him the soft skin of a prepubescent teenage boy. It was  _especially_  prominent in the fluorescent lights in Shoichi's room.

"Mind if I sit in here for a bit, Shoichi? What are you working on?"

"Go ahead. I'm not working on anything; I'm just doing more research on time-travel," Shoichi chose his words carefully, covering up any sense of suspicious behavior that he could possibly emit. "I'm trying to figure out how it works all over again and how you can reset the space-time continuum back to the way it was."

Words tumbled out of his mouth without a filter, and he realized this when Rusty tilted his head.

"I-I mean, I'm trying to figure out how to put time back into place. I haven't figured that out quite yet."

Rusty scratched his chin thoughtfully before taking a seat on Shoichi's bed next to him. A serious air came about the room, changing Rusty's face from content to an expression of seriousness.

"Why; is something wrong?"

"No, not at all," Shoichi lied, looking Rusty in the eye to make it seem believable. After all, he wouldn't understand this conundrum whatsoever. "I'm just… being an incompetent pencil sharpener. I feel like the answer is  _there_  but I'm overlooking something."

To his surprise, Rusty laughed it off, giving him a small, shy smile.

"Alright, you just keep insulting yourself with everyday objects. Besides," he paused standing up to stretch and continuing after cracking his neck. "As an answer to your problem, I would think that you would have to right something that went wrong over the course of time to get time to straighten itself out again. That's just me, though. See ya; Dante's going to yell at me!"

Even though Rusty took his sweet time of sauntering to the doorframe and closing Shoichi's door, Shoichi couldn't find it in himself to focus one bit on Rusty anymore. The only thing that rung in his mind was the reality of what he had said:

Right a wrong.

Time will straighten itself out.

The answer–like Shoichi thought it would be–was truly plain and simple… not to mention that he never would have found it  _because_  it was so elementary.

* * *

"That's mouse number ten. Do we have a challenger?"

I sat in the dusty, cluttered, dark space that my childhood friend had instructed me to  _live_  in. Ten mice have come and gone, with no obvious indication that they were even different mice.

"Who'd have thought that he'd even grow up from being the kid that he is now?" I muttered to myself, scoffing at the thought of how Shoichi really  _had_  shaped up. "Here, I thought he'd be totally different than he is…"

Up in the room, even if I had only been there for an hour, it was nothing but dust and mice. There was nothing to do other than look out of the window, but I was too busy being careful not to move around too much like Shoichi had asked me to do.

The wood beneath me shifted often enough to make me believe that the building that they were in was falling apart, but there were no signs of breaking and/or bending of the boards that held up this part of the building.

"Hana," Shoichi stepped into the room quietly, beautifully-decorated throw blankets adorning both of his arms. "I've brought you some blankets."

"It's about time! I was getting kinda cold up here." I laughed to myself when Shoichi handed the blankets to me and then sat back, watching me lay them about on the floor.

"Um, Hana…" he started, only to falter just when I looked up from adjusting the blankets he had given me. "I'm not sure if this will work, but I've got an idea as to why you're here, in the future. I think it might have to do with something that happened yesterday, when you disappeared."

"Disappeared?" I asked, interested. It wasn't like I could have disappeared in midair  _yesterday_ ; I've only been in the future for an hour or less!

"Yes. I'm not even entirely sure what happened… you and him got into another argument and…"

"Wait, wait," I stopped him there, confused. "Who is 'him' and why are we arguing?"

"You don't…? That's right, you don't know. I…" Shoichi couldn't seem to find what to say whatsoever. "…I don't think I should tell you; causing a butterfly effect could make the future– _your_  future–even worse than it already is… but you and he always fought all of the time and you disappeared yesterday right after telling me not to look for you. You still haven't returned… but anyway, I think older-you went to go see someone who could have screwed up the space-time continuum, sending  _you_  here for a longer period of time."

All of the information took a moment for me to process, but it didn't make a whole mountain of sense. "What's  _that_  supposed to mean? I fucked up  _time_?"

"Don't worry; I think I may have a solution to the problem!" Shoichi looked excited now, and he stuck his hands into the pockets of the jeans that he was wearing, probably to prevent him from looking  _too_  excited. "As bad as it sounds, time may  _truly_  be messed up and that might factor into the future.  _However_ , I think I know how to fix it."

"How?" I asked, narrowing my eyes skeptically. Trusting him could either take me back to younger-Shoichi's closet or could lead to my ultimate demise. After Golden-eyes and his carelessness with the gun that he possessed, I wasn't exactly up for an 'adventure'.

A mouse scurried across the floor toward Shoichi's foot, and he glanced down at it.

"Looks like he's number eleven," I muttered, watching it cautiously sniff around Shoichi's foot and slowly attempt to climb atop of it.

"What?" Shoichi asked, keeping his eyes on the mouse that was now beginning to settle itself on the top of his white shoe.

"He's the eleventh mouse I've seen today."

"I hope not," Shoichi scoffed slowly bending down to pick it up. "He's the only one up here. I have elected to call him Squeakers. I saw him the first time when I-"

"…You… really  _are_  Shoichi, aren't you? There's  _no_  way anyone who tried to fake you could do it so well."

I watched, bewildered, as 'Squeakers' scurried up Shoichi's arm and up to his shoulder, sniffing at his face.

"Are you  _sure_  that the mouse is  _clean_? You know… like, you won't get any diseases if it bites you?"

Shoichi paused for a long moment. That moment seemed to stretch out for mere seconds, but when he sprung back into action, he quickly put 'Squeakers' back down and he scurried away, underneath the dusty couch.

"No… I wasn't sure if he was clean."

I took a full moment to clear the whole mouse-incident from my mind, but I jumped right back on topic as I combed my hand through my hair.

" _Anyway_ , what's your plan? I don't exactly  _want_  to be stuck in the future, given that I'd spend all of my time in this dusty room!"

Shoichi scrunched his eyebrows together as if he was thinking really hard about what his plan was going to be.

"I'm not entirely sure, to be honest with you. In fact, I don't even know if it will work, but I'm willing to give it a shot. We'd have to leave this place to do it, and that won't be easy at all. We're on lockdown."

I frowned.

_Why are they on lockdown? Did something happen?_

Before she had the chance to ask, Shoichi quickly went on:

"It'd be impossible for the both of us to leave without being seen… unless…"

He trailed off there, and that's when he quickly left the room, muttering something about 'being back in a minute'.

_The hell's gotten into him?_

* * *

Of course!

It was blatantly obvious to Shoichi now; it would be easy to sneak out of the building if you knew someone whose  _specialty_  was stealth. It had evaded him until now that he had a way to sneak out. Even though that would mean telling someone else about the Hana that had appeared here from ten years earlier, it would be worth it… and it was just his luck that this person was someone whom he could trust and vice versa.

Shoichi descaled the stairs and took off at a steady jog toward the kitchen. If there was  _anywhere_  that maniac was hiding out at, he'd be in the kitchen. The hallways passed by in a blur, and before he knew it, he was in the dark excess of the kitchen. At first, he could hardly even see a couple of feet in front of him, but that's when he noticed a ball of yellow near the sink. With a much more thorough stare, that 'ball' morphed into individual strands of hair.

"Hey, do you have a minute?"

"Aw, c'mon man; ya know I've always got more than a  _minute_ , yeah."

Shoichi entered the kitchen, looking around furiously to make sure that this man–the only man that he could trust with this secret–was alone.

"Um…" Shoichi quickly adjusted his glasses to rid his arms of some of his anxiety. "I'm sure you've been wondering where Hana is as well, Silvano?"

The blonde immediately stood erect from what appeared to be washing some dishes and hurried over to Shoichi, furiously swinging his head back and forth.

"You serious? You know where she went, Ecchi? Show me where! I gotta go 'nd–"

"A-ah! Would you stop calling me 'hentai' and listen? This is important!  _Yes_ , I think I know where she went, but you're going to have to keep one hell of a secret for me…"

* * *

I had waited patiently until a minute morphed into two and soon into five and had almost reached ten when rapid footsteps began up the stairs. My first instinct was to hide, but the door exploded open to reveal a tall, blonde man who stared at me expectantly.

"So! What Ecchi tells me is true, ain't it?" He asked, sizing me up three times in one second before allowing his blue eyes to wander to my dark eyes and a gigantic smile spread across his face. "Missy's back from the past!"

_The hell is this guy and why is he so familiar with me? What did older-me DO to get THIS guy to follow her around?_

"Okay, Hana, this guy is going to help us sneak out. His name's Silvano, so…" Shoichi trailed off for a moment, appearing to be thinking over his plan once more.

"Have ya met me in the past yet, missy?" The blonde asked impatiently, but I shook my head, a stinging retort resting on my tongue. "Nope. Am I supposed to?"

"Well, yeah! Otherwise, you'll be missin' out on all'a this!" 'Silvano' began to point at himself at all different angles, throwing his arms around almost carelessly and nearly smacking Shoichi across the face.

" _Alright_ ," Shoichi finally spoke up, adjusting his glasses for the umpteenth time. "That's enough of  _that_ …"

"Ecchi," Silvano immediately turned his attention to the redhead, who rose his eyebrows and ignored the terrible nickname. "Where do ya want me to take ya two?"

"Why in the world do you call him that?" I asked, ready for any answer in the book at this point.

_I can't even come up with an excuse for that!_ _  
_

Silvano whipped around to me, sticking me with a creepily-friendly smile, but before he could answer, Shoichi cut into the conversation.

"We're not supposed to tell her too much, Silvano…  _and_  we have to get on-topic. The three of us are–as far as I know–the only ones who know that Hana is here from the past."

"What about Dante?" I asked quietly, and Shoichi audibly stifled a sigh, giving me the most exasperated look I'd seen in all of my days knowing him and the younger him.

"Dante's got the attention span of an iPod at 1% battery life," Shoichi shot back at me quickly before getting back on track. "Long story short, I have a plan that I've devised to get time to straighten itself out and hopefully we can get this over and done before anyone realizes that we're missing."

"What exactly would  _that_  be, nerd?" I asked impatiently, watching Shoichi shut his eyes and mumble something underneath his breath.

"Man!" Silvano laughed dramatically, placing his hand over his mouth to stop the sound from travelling. "She's still got it, Ecchi! If I'm allowed to say this, missy, ya ain't gonna change that in the future!"

Shoichi closed his eyes briefly once more, but he shook his head and continued his sentence: "We  _have_  to get started before anyone realizes that we're gone. We have to go find the one who I think can fix all of this."

"Ya ain't tell me ya knew another time-traveler," Silvano crossed his arms across his chest. "What else ya been holdin' out on, Ecchi?"

"Quit calling me 'hentai'!" Shoichi fumed.

His face was beginning to turn an unappetizing color of salmon, and I distracted the two from each other as quickly and harmlessly as I could:

"How does someone fix time?"

"Well," Shoichi started, glancing behind himself at the door before lowering his voice. "I don't know if he knows how to  _fix_  time, but he knows how it works. He's done it before; fixed time… but he's also nearly destroyed it, too… and I can't say we're even on good terms…"

"Well? Get on with it, Ecchi. What are you saying?" Silvano yawned, sneaking me a rascally glance.

I couldn't resist a snicker, and Shoichi pressed his lips together as if he was forcefully preventing himself from saying anything else, but he soon parted them into a sentence that invited my sass to the conversation once more.

"I'm  _saying_  that we need to pay an old friend of mine a visit."

"You have friends?" I raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reaction from my childhood friend, but he only seemed to suppress whatever he felt from what I had said.

"Who's the guy?" Silvano looked genuinely interested now, leaning into the space between he and Shoichi expectantly.

"…Well…"

Shoichi glanced from me to Silvano quickly, until he decided against what was probably his better judgment and uttered a name… one that, just with the  _mention_  of it, seemed to freeze time:

"Byakuran."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> What was that about Byakuran? He and Shoichi are friends, right?
> 
> Well, I've changed things around a little bit in a way. In this TYL (or at least, at this point), the black/white spells have dispersed. That's all I can say right now without spoiling my plot, but you get the gist.
> 
> Where exactly is she in the TYL timeline?
> 
> I'm (almost) making my stuff up (because… AU) and I'd like to say it's definitely after Tsuna's who spew with Byakuran and Yuni dying (aka, canon-TYL) at this point in TYL (aka, this isn't all I've got planned). That's where this is going to start getting AU-ish to the maximum capacity of AU. If that didn't make any sense, I apologize. The only explanation that I have for anything at this point is literally "because AU".
> 
> How long is this arc going to be?
> 
> I really don't want to expand on all of this too much (because it'd be spoilers for Hana and for the plot) but I want it to be between three and five chapters. No more, no less. This chapter would be chapter two of this arc, by the way. I never intended on this arc to be long. After all, the next arc is really important to the exposition and I need to get to it before this story drags on and on.
> 
> Wow, why is Shoichi so vague?
> 
> Well, unless you wanted him to tell you the plot, I guess vagueness is the closest I can do to hinting unless I decided to foreshadow (which this arc is literally one heap of foreshadowing). Vagueness is Shoichi's specialty.
> 
> Why are you so bad at being funny?
> 
> Because my humor is so weird and no one else thinks it's funny. At least I'm trying; unlike in the last version where I knew I wasn't funny so I just… didn't. I'm funny in real life, but I figured that my (odd) humor is probably not appropriate for this story.
> 
> What even is Silvano?
> 
> To be honest, I'm not even sure. I know some of you are glad that I brought him back, and new readers, prepare for him. He's out-of-control and sometimes I'm not even sure how to write him because of it. I couldn't even think about pulling him from the short line-up of OCs in this story because he is probably the most successful OC I've ever made.
> 
> What is with Silvano's nickname to Shoichi? Why would you do that?
> 
> Man, I was feeling creative, so I was like 'let's be funny!' and I decided that ecchi (pronounced eh-chee, I believe) would be a good one. I couldn't stop thinking about how the ending of "Shoichi" (the "chi" I guess) reminded me of it and I… I had to.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	6. Amaryllis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: foul language, more weapons, more characters, more Silvano (lmao), and a longer chapter.

_ Flashback: _

_"Who's the guy?" Silvano looked genuinely interested now, leaning into the space between he and Shoichi expectantly._

_"…Well…"_

_Shoichi glanced from me to Silvano quickly, until he decided against what was probably his better judgment and uttered a name… one that, just with the mention of it, seemed to freeze time:_

_"Byakuran."_

* * *

Chapter Six: Amaryllis

_The Amaryllis flower is a rare species; only two different flowers are categorized underneath this title. It is funnel-shaped and can have anywhere from two to twelve petals on it. These flowers are generally crimson with a pink, purple, or white in them. They get the color because of the veins that run through their petals. Named after a shepherdess countless years ago in its own Mythological tale, Amaryllis translated into English will give you the word 'pride'. Generally, it is a flower that you would give to those whom you deeply care about. They are also known as Naked Ladies and the Belladonna Lily._

_Meaning:_   _pride, determination and/or radiant beauty._

* * *

"Byakuran?"

I echoed the words that came out of Shoichi's mouth. Hardly anything that he was saying was making any sense in my warped mind anymore; time travel and fixing time were things that I knew to be absolutely  _impossible_ , and even attempting to do something so large-scale could destroy  _everything._

"He's an old friend of mine, but that doesn't matter now," Shoichi had finished his sentence hastily, disregarding the confusion that surrounded his seemingly-solo decision. "I've got an idea of how to get you back to the past and we're going to need to work together on this one."

Silvano had been somewhat casually listening, constantly wiggling his fingers into and out of his pockets as if he had something to say wiliest listening, but after Shoichi turned to him, Silvano shrugged as if he was waiting for him to take over.

"We're going to have to sneak out, so if Silvano could–"

"Ah man," Silvano sighed deeply. "I know the drill, Ecchi."

I waited, watching the two grown men exchange glances like they knew something that I didn't, but I held my tongue. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this situation was already tense enough without my input.

Silvano quickly moved to my side, taking my wrist and gently squeezing it before Shoichi turned to the door.

"Alright, we're going to go over there, but we  _have_  to be quiet. If  _Gio_  sees you, Silvano, it's over."

"But," I gritted my teeth as Silvano's grip tightened around my wrist. "What the hell is this guy doing?"

Shoichi turned around once more, cracking open the door. "He's about to help you sneak out of here undetected. Please don't talk until we're outside; we can't risk the others hearing us leave."

I suppressed a deep sigh as I advanced forward with Silvano's hand clenched around my thin wrist, his fingers pulsing as if they were my secondary heartbeat.

_How in the hell are you going to help us sneak out?_

The question seemed to resonate just above my head, swirling as the three of us descended the dark, creaky staircase down to what seemed to be the ground floor. Since Shoichi hadn't bothered to explain much (well,  _anything_  really…), things were beginning to fall apart. The strings of logic that tied this whole world together were starting to snap piece by piece.

"Ain't an idiot, missy. I know what you're thinkin'; ain't nobody can see the two of us. Not even Ecchi, yeah.  _We're_   _invisible together_."

I was tempted, even if it was for just a moment, to ignore Silvano entirely. My self-control, however, became trampled underneath the need to say  _something_  in the tense situation we were in.

"Sure, whatever makes you feel better," I mused, cracking beneath his grip. "I don't see how you can somehow make us invisible without even trying. I've got nothing else to lose, so as long as you don't get me  _killed_ , I guess I'm stuck with you."

Silvano closed the door behind me so forcefully that the gust of wind it created flew through my hair, faintly ruffling it.

"Think I'm lyin'? I'll show ya! Ecchi, come 'ere, real quick! Missy's a non-believer!"

The pair of us watched as Shoichi stopped in his tracks and lifted his red head into the ceiling in exasperation, as if he was searching for an extraterrestrial being to come down from the sky and save him from the idiot who thinks that we're both invisible.

"C'mon!" Silvano begged quietly, but the urgency in his voice was obvious. "Lemme take a look at your glasses! They're almost like a mirror sometimes, yeah!"

Reluctantly, Shoichi turned around and removed his glasses, blinking as if he had a hard time adjusting without having them on his face, but nonetheless, he parted with them and Silvano took them in his one free hand, holding them up to the closest light source which happened to be down the hall.

"See, missy? Can ya see us in the glasses?"

I squinted at the glass that would, under any normal circumstance, show both Silvano and I in its reflection, but instead there was nothing but the floor beneath us and the dark wallpaper behind us.

"Told ya! Alrighty, Ecchi, let's get a move on before anyone notices that we're here!"

Shoichi took a hold of his glasses and gently placed them on his face once more, and let out a quick sigh, but he didn't seem to acknowledge Silvano and continued to forge a path forward.

_This is just getting weirder and weirder. I'm either tripping balls or I'm dreaming this whole thing up._

In all honesty, there was no plausible way that I could actually be invisible, but at the same time… I just saw it. It was there. I cannot be seen by anyone but the big oaf beside me, who also happened to be invisible.

"What the ever-loving  _fuck_  do you think you're doing?"

I stopped immediately, sucking in my breath until I was sure that I would fall to the floor. The deep voice reached to my soul as Shoichi stopped. While, from the back, he did not seem to be afraid, I could hear his voice shake:

"I'm going for a stroll."

Shock wore itself off as Silvano swore underneath his breath, but a dark man soon came into view.

"A  _stroll_? We're on lockdown and we  _have_  been for the past  _week_. You, of  _all_  people, should abide by your own rules, Shoichi."

His voice was liquid; it rushed by just as quick as it came, but its depth was astounding. The ease of which he spoke was quick and quiet, but he made no mess of his words and made no unnecessary sounds. The sharp blue eyes that he possessed narrowed as he seemed to stare straight through Shoichi. The man shifted, allowing the sword on his back to twitch slightly and clang inside of its sheath. As quickly as the danger escalated, the man backed off from Shoichi the same way that he had gotten onto his case:

"Whatever. Your business isn't mine, I guess. Be back soon, before anyone  _else_  sees you. You too, Silvano. Dumb bastard."

In that same instant, those piercing eyes wandered over where an invisible Silvano and I stood, surveying him first, but allowing his eyes to wander over me for a mere moment before slipping by the two of us without looking back.

"Invisible my ass!" I huffed, staring up at Silvano.

"Hush, missy!" Silvano nudged me, almost flinging me into the wall. "You wanna get  _everyone_  in the vicinity of this place over 'ere? B'sides, it ain't my fault. Gio  _always_  sees straight through my tricks! Kid's a psychic! Man, there was this one time–!"

"I  _thought_  I told you to not let Gio see you, Silvano," Shoichi asked, turning his head Silvano's way. "You're just lucky he knows when to keep his mouth shut. He won't give us away. Let's go, before anyone  _else_  sees you two."

* * *

"Yeah, fresh air! When's the last time we got fresh air, Ecchi?"

Silvano flung his free arm over his head in delight, cracking each and every joint in it before taking in a deep breath. Shoichi even seemed less tense as we continued to walk down the street.

"Be careful. If you see anything out of place, let me know. Follow as closely behind me as you can get, and avoid pedestrians when you can."

The businesslike tone of which he spoke in was almost as if he was completely submerged in our mission… so much so that he didn't even turn back to look at us.

"Is he always like that?" I asked Silvano, who shrugged. "Ya get used to it after a while. I think he's just worried 'bout all the bad things that could happen."

Shoichi's posture gave off every warning sign in the book that Silvano was absolutely right. His hands were clasped inside of his pockets as he walked with his head held high, but I could tell that it was forced. The Shoichi that I had come to know would have walked with his head down, but this one, the older one, walked straight ahead as if he was ready to face hell.

"S'ides, Ecchi's gotta lot on his mind. I mean, I would too if–"

"I thought I told you to not tell her too much," Shoichi turned around this time, glaring at Silvano as his hands clenched into fists. "This is serious. We're dealing with changing history  _and_  the future. Screw  _that_  up, and things might turn out worse than they already are!"

I watched a flicker of worry flutter across Shoichi's face, but he turned around and composed himself before starting forward again.

"Now, let's hurry before anyone thinks that I'm just talking to myself."

The rest of our journey was cloaked in utter silence. The only sounds that I could hear above the usual civilian traffic were Shoichi's footsteps and Silvano's breathing. The voyage on foot was getting ridiculous; my bare feet were beginning to ache after stepping on multiple cigarette butts and narrowly avoiding a broken bottle on the sidewalk. I still hadn't recognized this part of town, even though Shoichi had told me that we were still in Namimori. Silvano's hand was beginning to get sweaty the harder that he held onto my wrist, but I almost couldn't feel that over the prospect that something wasn't quite right.

_Something feels out of place, but I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm just a little loopy because I'm starting to wake up from this asinine dream of mine._

My sarcasm toward myself was getting a bit old, since Silvano and I didn't talk due to the request by Shoichi.

We stopped at the entrance to a large gym-like building that reached multiple stories high into the air. All of the windows appeared to be tinted… possibly even one-way. The white marble with which it was built shone in the pale sun that peeked out from behind the faint clouds.

"Stay here."

Shoichi ordered both Silvano and I, but before I could protest and ask a couple of well-deserved questions, Silvano pulled me away and toward a space between the two buildings that we stood next to.

"What is he doing; going over there by himself?"

I struggled to watch what was taking place in front of my eyes; Shoichi was making his way toward the large building, continuing to keep up his calm demeanor.

"It ain't the first time, missy. Calm down; he's tryna determine if we can make our way into there without stirrin' up too much trouble."

I bit back a retort as I forced myself to watch Shoichi approach the building, but cut right and down an adjacent street before he could even get too close to the door.

"Looks like they're packin' heat, missy. Musta seen us comin' somehow." Silvano's face was curled into a frown and his eyebrows knitted themselves together as he appeared to be thinking. "I ain't know what we're gonna do. Ya can't fight 'nd we can't leave ya anywhere."

" _Fight?_ " I almost choked on my own spit at the mere  _suggestion_. "What do you mean  _fight_? I'm sure walking right through the door and politely asking to see this Byakuran guy might work if you're polite enough…?"

Silvano stared at me as if he was just as appalled at my suggestion as I was to his, wiping his forehead with his spare hand. "Man, Ecchi's makin' everything harder than it needs to be, yeah. The things I could tell you 'bout the future you right now, missy…"

I dwelled on that for a moment, wondering what exactly was on his mind. I wanted to know what would become of me in my later years so that I could prepare and make sure not to do certain things to get ahead, but that moment was gone as Shoichi approached us from the back, glancing behind himself anxiously.

"Ecchi, did ya get followed back here?"

"I don't think so," Shoichi panted, but he took a deep breath before going on: "I got close enough to see a camera. They've been waiting for us, I'm sure. I didn't want to get the others involved, but at this rate, we may have no choice. The only way we'll even come  _close_  to Byakuran is if we bring the others for backup."

I waited for an explanation of what he had just said, but that was when I realized that there wasn't one.

* * *

"Okay, I'll get the others and then we'll all formulate a plan together. You both should wait in the basement so that we can talk and be uninterrupted."

Shoichi instructed Silvano and I as we hustled to another mahogany door that didn't seem to be used much.

"Sure, Ecchi. You think this'll work; getting them to believe us about what just happened?"

It was as if an unspoken thought passed between the two of them as Silvano forced me behind him and onto the first step.

"It has to," Shoichi muttered, hustling up to gather the 'others', whoever they may be.

Silvano turned on the light, using one of those old pull-down switches that lit up a single lamp that lit up the stairs just enough so that I could see where I was putting my feet. When I hit the bottom of the stairs, cold cement chilled me up to my elbows and I stood in absolute darkness, unsure which way to go, until Silvano flipped another switch and a comfortable room appeared before me. There were three beds in the far corner, furthest away from the door. It looked as if they had been once shielded by a curtain, but it seemed to be draped between the concrete wall and a dresser. There were no windows, and I watched Silvano make his way toward the main focus of the room; a table with eight seats surrounding it.

"Had some good times down here, yeah… c'mon. You sit at the end," Silvano told me, comfortably taking a seat across from me. I couldn't even ask what he meant by 'good times' as he continued on: "So missy; you excited 'bout what we're gonna do?"

"Which is…?"

"We gonna fight, more than likely. That's the only way to get through to those people."

Silvano's eyes lit up at the prospect of the fight and he even appeared to be a bit antsy. It was almost terrifying; I couldn't even imagine fighting right now… much less fighting to make my way back to the present.

"I–"

Just as I had begun to speak, the clamber of footsteps walking down the old, rickety stairs. Voices floated down from the cracks in the wall, echoing in the concrete room around me:

"One at a damn time!" Someone with a gruff voice growled. "If y'all are gonna get on the stairs at the same time, it'll collapse!"

"I want to see if this beanstalk-lookin' ginger's telling the truth!" The recognizable voice of my almost-murderer, Dante, echoed above the groans of despair. "I'm not about to waste my goddamn time for this today!"

"Calm down," A genderless voice spoke up, appearing to have directed this comment toward Dante, whom I knew was a problem in and of himself. "I'm sure if we all just went down one at a time…"

"Morons!" A feminine voice shouted. "Let's get a move on! No one can go when you're all blocking the way!"

" _ **Move**_ ," The voice of the man who had seen both Silvano and I even though we were invisible spoke up. "I'll push  _all_  of you pieces of shit down the stairs so that you'll see he's telling the damn truth."

I watched Silvano lean back as the bickering continued. "Yup, they're always like this. What a noisy lot. Glad I ain't over there. Last time we broke the stairs, Kim got mad at me. Ain't even my fault neither; it was that damn Gio swingin' his sword 'round like it's a toy."

_What's going on? Are we really going to fight this Byakuran guy over me? As if I'll politely ask these guys what the hell they can do to send me back to the past. At least things made sense there!_

"Acting like a bunch of stubborn stuck-together Legos!" Shoichi snapped audibly as the stairs creaked once again. "If you all could stop bickering for a minute, then I'd be able to explain it to you!"

Shoichi was the first to step down from the stairs, followed by more people, most of which I could not recognize. The only ones who stood out for me was the gun-crazed Dante and the calm and cool guy whose eyes pierced my soul.

"What the–?" Dante stopped as he spotted me, his eyebrows scrunching up like a man who was desperately trying to see what he looked like in the mirror with a unibrow. "Why the hell are  _you_  still here?"

"You done goofed, son." The deep, sarcastic voice of the piercing man gruffly laughed. "How could you  _not_  notice that there's your boss? And here I was beginning to think your intelligence was on its  _upslope_."

I tuned out of the conversation, wondering what I was witnessing.

_Boss? Of what?_

The question wanted to pop out of my mouth like a nearly-swallowed Jolly Rancher, but I quickly decided that this was not the time to question something that was probably off-limits according to Shoichi.

"Pulling a gun on the boss, tsk tsk," a person with long brown hair and a little braid on one side laughed at Dante. "I can't believe you threatened her life!"

"Aight, we ain't got no time for this," Silvano spoke up, leaning backward in his chair. "Everybody take a seat 'nd help Shoichi figure somethin' out 'fore his head explodes."

Quickly, everyone seemed to migrate toward different chairs, almost as if they had a seating chart or something of the sort. Shoichi made his way to sit next to me, hardly even sharing a glance with me as he immediately got down to business.

"What should we do to get into Byakuran's heavily-guarded "office" building? We can't just waltz in; he'd see us coming half a mile away."

"C'mon, Shoichi," another dark man grumbled, stretching from the far side of the table. "Give us a break. Besides, we've got the boss to say hello to from the past!"

I watched eyes settle on me and I naturally shriveled up under the expectant gazes of these people, most of whom I had no idea who they were.

_It doesn't make it any easier when you have no idea what the hell they're talking about!_

"She looks so much younger!" A blonde woman gushed, placing her finger on her lip, showing off her red nail polish as the light hit it just right.

"No shit, Kim," the dark man who had just interrupted Shoichi rolled his eyes, scratching his beardless face. "She  _is_  younger."

"If you don't mind," the piercing blue eyes darted from me to Dante. "Dante has something to say."

I waited as Dante appeared to have swallowed some of his pride, albeit it obviously wouldn't completely go down.

"…Sorry. It's your  _own_  fault, you know? Why didn't you just  _tell_  me–"

"It's kinda difficult to talk calmly to someone when they're waving a gun in front of your face," I shot back, waiting for this guy's anger to resurface just as I had expected. Instead, he submitted and tore his gaze away from mine and set his golden eyes on the table.

"If you're all done," Shoichi was beginning to get antsy as he sat beside me. "We've got an issue to resolve. We're going to need to speak with Byakuran because I believe he is the only one who can set time back to the way that it was. I think he's been expecting trouble, so what the hell are we supposed to do to bypass it without causing a problem?"

The room was silent, and only the sound of Silvano tapping his fingers against the hollowing wooden table remained. The light above us flickered faintly as if it wished to go out, but it did no such thing as a timid hand rose.

"We could rappel down from a helicopter onto the top of the building. There's no way that they'd see us coming that way."

"The hell are we gonna get a helicopter, boy?" Silvano shot a glare down the table, ceasing tapping his fingers on the wood. "We ain't  _that_  rich. They'd hear us comin' 'fore ya had the chance to pull out them ropes."

The person with the helicopter idea quickly looked down at their hands, shying away as if they immediately regretted their decision to speak out.

"How about we go on the flip-side of that?" I asked, rising my voice enough to be heard. "We could go underneath the building instead."

"How in the  _hell_  are we gonna pull that off?" The intense eyes of the man who had appeared to recognize me in the hallway earlier that day turned to me. "It's not like we've got a drill hiding up our asses that we can pull out anytime we want to use it."

"Just throwing out suggestions," I mumbled under my breath. "It's not like there's any  _other_  way to get in except for through the front door."

The atmosphere in the room was beginning to tighten, almost as if everyone present drew in their breath at the same moment. The situation didn't bother me once I accepted that I was nowhere close to younger-Shoichi's closet that I so thought I would still be in after touching that slick metal-thing in the box that he specifically stated not to touch.

"That might just be our only option," Shoichi stood up from his seat and accentuated his point using his finger to draw an imaginary diagram. "Byakuran's place has six floors. I'm sure you're all familiar with that. Last time we tried to get in, it didn't work out so well. We've got to try a different method and stick with it."

"Through the front door? Ya crazy, Ecchi?" Silvano stared at him unbelievably. "Ya tryna get us killed out there? This dude ain't seem like an idiot to me, so I ain't 'boutta do somethin' stupid hoping to get past 'em."

"I know," Shoichi quickly addressed what Silvano said. "You're right. He isn't stupid, and he's far from it. However, I think he might know exactly why we're there in the first place. We have to try something, or we'll screw up time even more than it already has been screwed up."

I waited for someone else to say something, but the entire room appeared to be completely silent. No one seemed to have an idea in their head about how to get out of this dilemma that seemed to affect me the most.

_If I had something to offer to the table, I would! It's not like I know a thing about what's happening in the future, thanks to Shoichi, and I don't know how this Byakuran-guy operates at all! Besides… I don't know why they're so quick to get hostile._

The entire situation confused the hell out of me; nothing made sense because I had no context. The fighting didn't seem necessary at all, but there had to be a reason as to why they were so quick to resort to it.

"I'm just ready to go home," I admitted, giving up due to my own lack of ideas. It seemed desperate and almost whiny, but I got past the point of caring. "Whatever you've got, all of you, just get it over with."

"Alright, that settles it. We're doing this  _tonight_." Shoichi stood up and cracked his neck, quickly putting his glasses back into place. "We have to  _break in_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> Why is your AU so confusing?
> 
> I'm trying my best to make it somewhat follow-able, but it isn't too easy when there are so many plot-holes in canon as well. I'm trying my absolute best to cover them up believably, so bear with me!
> 
> Why didn't you just call Byakuran's hideout-thing "Melone Base"?
> 
> Well, I did some research and found out that in the canon!future, Shoichi built Melone base. Obviously, in my AU, he did not. Therefore, I had to quickly edit that outta there and figure something else out. I thought about something intimidating and I thought 'yay big buildings' so… that's what went down. The purpose of the large building, though.. what could that be? I'll leave that up to you all for now.
> 
> *yawn* Is this arc almost over?
> 
> Yup! The conclusion is next chapter, and then we're onto something that many of you have been waiting for!
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> I can't wait for this arc to be over so I can focus more on the characters rather than the plot, if that makes any sense to anyone… this chapter was particularly difficult. The arc is almost over, my friends. I cannot wait for you all to see what I have in store!
> 
> ~Teafully~


	7. Edelweiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language (why do I put this here; it's a given…), long chapter, end of the arc, fighting, weapons, blood… you get the gist.

_ Flashback: _

" _Alright, that settles it. We're doing this tonight." Shoichi stood up and cracked his neck, quickly putting his glasses back into place. "We have to break in."_

* * *

Chapter Seven: Edelweiss

_Despite meaning "noble and white" when translated from German, Edelweiss actually is more of a silver color, with yellow accents in a star shaped flower. Edelweiss only flowers once and then dies. It must reseed itself before growing once again. This flower can be used to make tea. It is full of anti-oxidants, and other compounds that are said to help in the ageing process. It is also used in sun block and moisturizer. Edelweiss is even being hailed in the scientific world as a natural medication to help with vascular problems._

_Meaning_ :  _noble purity, courage, daring, power, and/or gracefulness._

* * *

I watched as these people–the ones who claimed to know me in the somewhat distant future–rush around frantically as the plan was set in stone.

"Tonight, we're rushing Byakuran," Shoichi had said earlier. His glasses had begun to slip off of his face, and he had pushed them back into place as if they were a nuisance. "We'll exploit Silvano and use his unique ability to our advantage. After that, I say we wing it and hope that we don't get too much company."

_Idiot._  Something dropped onto the hard, concrete surface that happened to be the floor.  _Why are we so willing to fight?_

Only a couple of us remained; the large burly guy and his blonde-haired, lipstick-donning accomplice had volunteered to stay out of this one, which left me, Shoichi, Silvano, the brown-haired person and the ever-so-mysterious Gio. While the party was small, Shoichi did make the remark that we hopefully weren't going to need "all of our forces" for this one.

"This is stupid," I remarked aloud. "As if fighting is going to solve a  _thing_. Besides, aren't we supposed to be asking this guy for a  _favor_? Why would  _fighting_  make him more willing to do what we ask?"

I wanted to voice my opinions, but those around me only continued what looked to be preparations for an altercation; scattered ammunition lay about the table that I continued to mope at, and the constant clicking of casings was nearly rhythmic.

"Are you ready to go back to the past, Hana?" Shoichi's voice cut through the silence about the room like a gale of piercing wind, and he loaded his sleek gun before continuing. "After this whole ordeal, I mean."

"I'm still debating whether I'm tripping or not," I retorted, allowing my hands to comb through my course hair, that of which hadn't been washed or brushed since my alleged 'teleportation' to the future. "It's not as science could  _support_  the whole idea in the  _first_  place!"

"Is that a challenge?" Shoichi asked, raising his eyebrows at the prospect of arguing the probability of science with me, but the brief exchange between the two of us halted when a clock, presumably from upstairs, began to chime.

Once.

"Hand me a casing, will you?" Someone asked.

Twice.

"Yeah, sure." Someone else answered.

I waited for a third ding, questioning if I could hear it over the sound of metal clashing with metal, but it never came. A sense of dread cloaked me, but that stopped when so-called Gio looked up from his weapon. Those eyes, deep and blue, shone in the dark room where he was nearly hidden between his dark attire and skin.

"Is it really that late?"

"I suppose so," Silvano glanced around the room, his eyes landing on Shoichi. "Ya'bout ready?"

_What the hell kind of stupid idea is this?_

"I'm ready," Shoichi responded, dropping something in front of me at the table that we sat down in front of. "Here, Hana. I loaded it for you; you're going to need it this time."

_This time?_

"No, I can't use this!"

_You can't make me._

_**I can't carry a gun.** _

I pushed it away from me as fast as I could, resulting in a slight nick to my knuckle as I hit the old, wooden table with my hand. The gun pivoted and shot off of the corner of the table. It clanged against the concrete flooring and the room began to freeze as time slowed for me.

_**I** _ _ **can't** _ _**carry a gun.** _

The mere thought of it made me sick to the stomach and breathing became tedious. Without the effortless pump in and out of my lungs, I grasped for a full breath like I was used to. The breath seemed to come in short puffs as I searched for an answer to my repulsion.

It was as if Shoichi knew there was none.

He only seemed to shrug it off and reached for the machine with his foot, sliding it toward himself and picking it up as the noise of metal against metal continued. A small chip had come off of the metal, stripping the jet-black paint away.

"At least carry it," Shoichi asked me. This time, he sounded much gentler, almost as if he understood something that I could hardly even explain. "If we can help it, you won't need to shoot it."

_He doesn't know a_ _ thing _ _about me._

"I don't think I can do it," I admitted, reluctantly putting my mask away. It had already begun to slide off as I shot back to my arrival in the distant future, when Dante had constantly taunted me with it; threatening my life over one-sided information. "You expect a kid to kill someone? Tell me how that works out."

_Not a_ _**damn** _ _thing._

Shoichi finally took a deep breath and placed it atop of the table, and I watched it shiver without a hand to hold onto it.

"Whatever you say," he muttered, wiping his hair away from his face and glasses before addressing those around us. "I'm ready when all of you are. Let's just get this over with."

"You're tellin' us, Ecchi," Silvano snorted, and the congregation snorted along with him. "I was  _born_  ready, yeah."

The boy with the pretty, light brown hair stood up first, clipping the magazines onto his belt. His slender fingers ran across it, making sure that it would stay in place.

"What're we waiting for? If we wait any longer, the sun's going to come up."

Shoichi glanced from me to the killing machine in front of me before nodding.

"Let's go."

* * *

The quiet night seemed to swallow up the footsteps that broke through the unfamiliar neighborhood of Namimori. I listened for the soft chirping of restless birds or the roaring of motors, but there was none. Time was nearly frozen, and it noticeably took an effect on my entourage; it was as if no one could even breathe, for they were so afraid of making a sound. The cold autumn wind caressed my shoulders and my legs, spinning between my Namimori school uniform.

"I'll repeat this one more time before we get there," Shoichi had broken the dreadful silence, his voice cutting through it just as a butter knife would cut through butter. "Everyone will take a hold of Silvano as we approach so that we can at least get in undetected. Using the elevator will be an immediate sign of a break-in, so we may as well take the stairs. I will take the initiative of finding some way to disable the cameras so we can move around freely."

The tenseness in his throat showed on his face as the half-moon illuminated it. His eyebrows were knitted together with worry, and his jaw was clenched as he held two weapons, both his and mine, with both hands.

I wanted to ask a multitude of questions:

What was  _I_  supposed to do?

So what if we get to this Byakuran guy? How are we going to  _peacefully_  convince him to let me leave this damn place?

What do we do if he outright refuses to send me on my way (however the hell he would even be able to  _do_  that)?

It was all too soon; even though I had only been with these people for (what, a full day?), I had already begun to miss the time that I currently lived in; I mean, the biggest things on my mind before coming to the future were how screwed I was with my father when I got home after he found out about me being in the principal's office, and then about Shoichi's mom finding me in his closet when she was so strict that women besides her were not allowed in their two-story apartment.

"Aight; I ain't gonna be able to hold my illusion for long," Silvano snapped me out of my thoughts as he moved to the head of the group. "We gotta make this one quick, 'nd once we're inside, we ain't gettin' out until this guy complies."

In a great shift, everyone seemed to crowd Silvano as the large building came into sight mere yards away. I grabbed ahold of his forearm and held it as tightly as I could, careful not to let go as we inched closer and closer.

_The things I could_ _ do _ _with invisibility._

I watched as Silvano reached toward the door, but as he laid his hand on it, it jiggled softly but would not budge.

"Shit, it's locked. What dumbshit didn't think of that?" Dante whispered loudly, and I could feel the idiocy seep out of Shoichi, who stayed next to me. "You'd think that it–"

"Hold your horses." Gio's icy voice pierced the night sky, and I watched him pull out a deck of cards from his shirt pocket.

_What the hell does he think he's doing? We've got no time to waste!_

Gio quickly pulled out one card, the Ace of Spades, and I watched as it slowly went up in a blue flame. He looked into it as if it had every answer he wished to know, but upon closer inspection, I saw that it was nothing more than a mirror.

"No," Gio shook his head quickly. "It's not locked; just reinforced. It's one of the stronger illusions that I've encountered recently, so be on the lookout for anything suspicious."

_How does he know all that?_

I was lost for words, but no one else seemed to have the problem that I had; everyone had sprung into motion as I came to. Gio quickly switched out his Ace of Spades for the Queen of Hearts as he wedged it between the doors, sawing as if cutting wood in half.

The glass doors swung open and we bundled inside. My grip on Silvano's forearm loosened just as we made it inside, and I was pulled away from the entrance in an instant.

"Ow!" I snapped as my arm jerked past its jerking-point. "What–?"

Shoichi looked down at me, shaking his head. "Cameras," he mouthed to me, but I watched as Dante crowded around me instead. "We gotta move. I wanna get as far up this bitch as we can before we get caught. There's no time to disable the cameras; if we want this heist over by daybreak, we're going to have to wing it."

"Quiet!" The boy with the pretty light-brown hair hissed from Silvano's side as they slithered back into view. "Let's find the stairs. That way, we won't get stuck in the damned elevator."

"We're splitting up," Gio remarked as Rusty stopped whispering. "If we do, we'll cover more ground."

"No," Shoichi quickly interjected. "If we do, it'll be easier to get captured and killed, for all we know. We're not here to start a war; we just want our leader back."

I watched something linger in Shoichi's face, but I couldn't tell if it was nostalgia or something completely different.

"We'll start by going this way," Shoichi thrust his head toward a dark corridor, masked with beautiful furnishings and desks with computers. "Look for the stairs, and protect yourselves at all costs. I don't want to have any casualties if we can help it in this case, but don't hesitate if you feel that your life or someone else's is in danger."

I watched the sky and how the only visible stars seemed to be nearly fading out of sight.

_Hopes and dreams… would the future even be worth having any dreams, if this is what it's been reduced to?_

I couldn't answer my own thought as Shoichi quietly crouched down and advanced forward with both of his weapons by his sides, and I followed straight after him. It was especially quiet; nothing made a sound but our breathing and footsteps (not to mention the occasional swear or stumble), and I was able to take deep breaths and clear my mind.

"Ecchi," Silvano raced to his side and crouched to an identical height as we crept forward. "Why ain't ya think nobody's seen us yet? Cameras are hidin' all over the place."

"I'm not entirely sure myself." Shoichi stopped briefly, cracking his shoulders, but he turned to me and handed me that damned weapon once more. "At least hold it and be careful."

"Why don't  _you_  hold it?" I asked, my voice rising to a squeak in despair. "I won't use it anyway!"

"I can't risk it," Shoichi shot back at me quickly. "Just hold it and be careful, okay?"

I stared at it, as it had hit the dark carpet flooring with a muffled thud.

_Why doesn't he understand that I_ _ can't _ _do it?_

" _Okay_?" Shoichi pressed, leaning in for emphasis.

My hand reached toward the machine on the ground, and the cold material shocked my nerves, giving me immediate goose bumps. I continued to force myself to clench my hand over the handle of the gun until my index finger rested upon the trigger, but I moved it as fast as I could from it, swallowing my fear.

"Let's get on with it; we've got six floors to clear before we get to the top." The brown-haired person seemed tense and nervous. "I don't want to have to take any lives if I can help it."

"I get it, Rusty," Dante snorted. "Let's just hurry the hell up already."

Everyone got quiet as we snuck by desks and office rooms that all appeared to be locked. Paintings of landscapes and cityscapes alike dotted the walls periodically.  _Who the hell is this guy, anyway; a multimillionaire with nothing better to do? Or is he some nobody scientist who found a way to screw over everyone in this damn town?_ I unconsciously tightened my hold on the machine in my hand, but my unease only got worse the more I thought about it.

"This way."

Shoichi led us with Silvano right behind him to the left as we entered a lobby-like area with little-to-no offices and decorative fake plants accenting the open room. I stopped as our group surrounded me.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, feeling their shoulders and backs touch me from all sides of the circle-like stance they had assumed. The gun shivered in my unsure grip as I drowned in conflicting scents of the men surrounding me. "What–"

"Where's Byakuran?" Shoichi questioned aloud.  _He's talking to someone._  "Tell me or I'll shoot you."

"The hell's it to you?" A deep voice shot back. I stood on my toes to see, regardless of how sore they felt after being barefoot all day. "I've been ordered to take out any trespassers. Turn back or die."

The group surrounding me took a collective breath, and a shot rang out almost impulsively. I jumped, and stumbled backward, unbalancing the person behind me as I recovered from the shock of a gunshot.

_The hell has gotten into me?_

"You aight, missy?" A much more serious Silvano asked me, but I couldn't pinpoint where he was in my shock. It was almost as if he was looming over me, but I was unsure.

"Yeah," I coughed; covering up my fear became even more tedious than before. I took deep breaths in an attempt soothe myself. "Scared me, that's all."

"The stairs are over here," Gio nodded in front of us, and I could see the secluded stairs just ahead. "I'll go first and scout; I'm sure he knows we're here now."

In the dark, I could see nothing but his eyes and the shine of a weapon that he revealed–a sword-as he advanced quickly toward the steps. I recovered from the shock, but I was wary of another hail of bullets when we began to move forward. My stomach lurched when I took notice of the man on the floor who had been shot; while no blood could be seen, his muscles appeared to still be functioning as his arms occasionally flailed and his fingers twitched.

Silvano sighed beside me. "He's not dead."

"Good. Kick his weapon away and follow Gio's lead; I just want this shit to be over and done," Dante's sour attitude reflected just how much I had unconsciously asked he and everyone else to do for me. I had not only caused a bunch of trouble just being in the future, but the means of which they had to take to get me out of it were extreme and possibly deadly. "Hana, you'll stay behind me."

I started forward, but the gun in my own hands shook uncontrollably as I focused.  _It feels… right. I'm terrified of the damn thing, but it fits in my hands like I've held it for years._  As I stared at nothing, so-called Rusty shoved me into motion, forcing me to follow Dante and step over the body of this victim. His eye twitched when I reached over him, but I dashed forward and to the stairs, not stopping until I reached the top.

A maze of one large laboratory stared me and the others in the face; the brightness pierced us uncomfortably and the bubbling sounds that emitted from it were nearly distasteful.

"I've always hated the smell of sterilization," Rusty muttered from behind me as Gio stopped in the center of the lab to look around. "It just doesn't seem natural to me."

Shoichi, the one whom I thought would have been enamored by this gigantic chemistry set, only took a quick glance and kept going.

_Of course,_  I ran with certainty this time, regardless of the machine in my hands and the impending fear of the future.  _I can imagine having older-me running off will have been detrimental to the others. To think that in the future, I have people who care about me just this much…_

I approached more stairs and we were careful to cover our tracks.

"You'd have thought that more people would have shown up after hearing gunshots," Gio commented quietly. "I've never encountered this before."

A loud bang sounded from above, and I looked up to see the faces of more than a few people staring down at us from a balcony-like precipice just above the stairs. No one made another sound as Dante casually pulled out his gun and motioned to the rest of us:

"I've got this lot. See if you can all slip through; I'll cover your asses."

"What?" Rusty from behind me questioned, but another bang, a gunshot, interrupted him. This time, instead of showing my obvious fear, I jumped at the sound. "You don't have to–"

"No time," Shoichi cut in, sprinting his way behind Dante and up the stairs behind him as he shot off as many bullets as his trigger finger would allow. "We'll catch up; find the other stairs!"

I wanted to point out that, on these narrow steps, we couldn't move anywhere until the path was somehow cleared, but Silvano took my wrist instead.  _Of course! Wow, this guy really comes in handy, doesn't he?_

"I ain't know where we'd be without me!" He chuckled, but helped me, Rusty, and Gio slide past the mob of people who aimlessly shot at Shoichi and Dante without getting shot at ourselves. "The stairs ain't too far 'head."

We shuffled over toward the middle of this room, which housed couches and an empty café near the corner, but the stairs were nowhere in sight. I swung my head around hopelessly. The sound of rapid gunshots tore through the air, piercing my eardrums and causing them to ring uncomfortably.

_We have to keep moving!_

"I'll stay behind and help those two!" Gio suddenly pulled away from Silvano's grasp, hurrying back to the way from which we came. "Find the way up!"

"He coulda been our ticket to the way up," Silvano scoffed while wildly turning around in circles. "What if there's another illusion that only he can see through?"

"There!" Rusty shot off as well, but in a different direction just beside the vacant café. "The stairs are here!"

Sure enough, they were there, but well-hidden behind a wall rather than in plain sight like the ones before us. The gunshots continued, and I followed Rusty up the stairs.

_It has to end here, doesn't it? They don't care if the past, present,_ _ and _ _future are supposedly screwed if something happens to me here._

"Ow!" I yelped as I stubbed my bare toe on the stairs. I tumbled upward, slapping my face against more stairs in the process. "Damn…"

"Missy, ya okay?" Silvano asked, stumbling downward to help me up, but I had already stood on my own two feet.

"Yeah, fine."

_How embarrassing._

I stood up and followed Silvano to the top, where Rusty waited with his gun drawn. "I think someone's in here… but I'm not sure."

Silvano paused, taking a deep breath and looking around; it was only a narrow hallway that led to another set of stairs, but office rooms dotted the hallway in increments. The catch? All of the doors were open.

"If we're lucky, the doors are open because of the people Ecchi and Dante are fighting. If not, we just walked into a trap."

I held onto my machine, allowing my hands to tighten on it. The gunfire had ceased downstairs, leaving the whole building in an awkward state of quiet, such as a morgue; full of bodies, yet none of which have the ability to speak.

"I'll go first with my ability, then you follow if I give you the signal."

_How can we follow if we can't see the signal?_

I waited until Silvano was out of sight to ask Rusty, but he only intently stared ahead before saying something surprising:

"Shoichi's going to be okay, Hana," he smiled at me, the little braid on the left side of his head dangling limply as he did so. "I'm worried about Dante, too, but he's always been fine in situations like this. Shoichi's the same way."

I couldn't even respond as Rusty slowly moved forward, beckoning for me to follow quietly. I did so, forcing myself to slow my breathing as much as I could; if I breathed too loudly, it would surely give us away. The office that we passed had a great view over Namimori from its window and one of those chairs that spins, and for a moment, I forgot that my life was in danger.

_It's almost as if there's nothing to be afraid of._

"Psst!"

I stopped for a moment, looking around.  _Is that in my head, or…?_

"Hana, come here!" I turned my head slowly toward the office that I had been observing, but I could see someone sitting in the chair now. "Quickly!"

With a moment of hesitation and making sure that Rusty was far enough ahead that he didn't see me, I did as the person said, curious as to how yet  _another_  person knew my name.

"Who–?"

My mouth clamped shut when I recognized Shoichi sitting there, and when I entered, he jumped right up from the chair.

"Are you okay, Hana?"

I nodded, resisting my sarcasm for once. "All but a stubbed toe."

He appeared to visibly relax, but then he tensed again as he noticed the gun in my left hand.

"You still have your gun," Shoichi appeared to be genuinely upset. "I know you don't like them, and I'm sorry that I made you carry it. We should be okay now; I have a much quicker, safer way to get us to Byakuran."

"What about the others?" I asked, but Shoichi shook his head. "If more than two of us go, then he'll think of it as some sort of ambush."

_Isn't it already "some sort of ambush"?_

I thought about questioning his reasoning, but I thought against it as he took the gun from my hands and armed himself with it.

"Where'd your gun go?" I questioned, wondering why it wasn't on him. After all, it appeared as if he took very good care of his weapon.

"It was damaged during the shootout," He told me, looking both ways before sprinting backward toward the stairs that I had already climbed. "This way. We'll take the elevator from that floor."

_The elevator? Didn't he specifically say NOT to take the elevator just in case we all get trapped inside if it gets shut down on us?_

Though his reasoning was flawed, I could somewhat understand. It would be a shorter trip upward if we took it from here rather than the ground floor. Regardless, I followed him to where the elevator was, which was near the back of the previous room, across from the café below.

Shoichi pressed the "up" button, and we waited for only a couple of minutes before the elevator made the dinging sound before we stepped in. He pressed the highest number on the machine, 6, and the door shut almost immediately.

"It's been awhile since I spoke with Byakuran," he seemed to be talking to himself. "I'm sure this reunion will be unexpected."

I nodded, listening to the humming of the elevator as we went up. For a moment, it was as if the danger that I was in… was nonexistent.

* * *

"Where's Hana?" Silvano turned around at the stairs, disabling his invisibility so Rusty could see him. "Did ya lose 'er?"

"I swear she was right next to me a second ago!" Rusty looked almost disoriented as he looked around frantically. "There's no way she could have gotten away or something! No one took her, either, because we would have heard something!"

"Aww shit," Silvano scratched his head, but his face scrunched up in worry. "Ecchi's gon'  _kill_  us."

* * *

"Finally, all these bitches are dead!" Dante sighed, but the excitement of the fight shone in his eyes. "Ain't that right, Shoichi?"

"Yeah, I suppose." He didn't look even remotely excited about fighting; the only thing visible in his face was the tiredness that he couldn't seem to shake from being on his toes all of the time. Having a guard up 24/7 made having a real one up ten times more difficult. "Let's hurry and catch up."

Gio nodded in agreement, briefly swinging his sword around to splatter leftover blood onto the beige office walls. "I agree. I hope they haven't gotten into trouble since stalled."

Shoichi took a moment to reload his gun, but after that, he led Dante and Gio up the stairs and toward more stairs before running into Silvano, sending them both reeling.

"What the hell? Why aren't you guys going–?"

He stopped as soon as he saw the look on Silvano's face; fear.

"What happened? And where's Hana?" Shoichi glanced behind Silvano, but he couldn't even see a glimpse of her hair.

Rusty rushed up to Dante just as he stopped in his tracks. "Are you okay? You're not wounded, are you?"

Dante shook his head, surveying Rusty carefully. "No, I'm not. Are you?"

"No." Rusty did manage to crack an unsure smile. "I'm glad you're unhurt… but…"

Shoichi stood up straight, staring at Silvano's face as it didn't seem to move from its horrified expression.

"What?"

"…I ain't mean to lose 'er, Ecchi," Silvano finally managed to open his mouth. "I ain't know where she went, even! She up 'nd disappeared."

Gio suddenly armed himself once more with his sword, swinging it around again to get the spare blood off of it. "Do you think it was an illusion? Did you check first?"

"I swear I did," Rusty nodded, his big brown eyes widening. "I can't tell you where she went. One second, we were talking to each other and the next…"

Shoichi stared right ahead, allowing the thought to sink in. "She couldn't have just disappeared… could she?"

Silvano laid his hand on Shoichi's shoulder. "I ain't even know, Ecchi. I'm sorry; we'll spend all day finding 'er, aight?"

"No," Shoichi said, shaking Silvano's hand off. "No, we don't have the damn time for that. I'm not willing to risk the future or her life by putting all of us in danger."

He pushed past the rest of the group and sprinted up the stairs, skipping every other step as to not waste time. At the top of the stairs, Shoichi inspected every office he passed. The doors were left ajar, yet there was no sign of his childhood friend. Just as both Rusty and Silvano had suggested, she had disappeared and no one had heard her leave.

Shoichi pushed himself to the end of the hall, staring up the next staircase that led to the next floor as he wracked his brain for an answer to a sudden silent disappearance by a woman whom he  _knew_  would not go quietly.

_There is nothing that suggests a struggle. No knocked over items and no signs of blood or injury. Witness accounts by trusted colleagues say she was there but suddenly disappeared without making a sound, which would be damn-near impossible without having them notice. The key here is her silence, and I know for a fact that the only way she would be silent in a situation such as this is if she was killed. There's no evidence of that, either. _ _If she wasn't taken by force..._

"If she wasn't taken by force," Shoichi continued his thought aloud as he turned on his heel to relay his findings to his peers. "She was taken by will."

* * *

The elevator made that dinging sound once more as we reached our destination, the sixth floor, and I looked up at Shoichi as he took a left.

"You know where to go?"

"Yeah," He shrugged. "It's not the first time I've been in here."

I waited for him to say more, but nothing happened as we walked down the much more embellished hallway side-by-side. He opened a large door that opened just by standing in front of it and shoved me inside.

"Ow!"

I stopped struggling in Shoichi's grasp as I came to my senses: the Shoichi that I knew personally would never do this.

He would never leave our teammates in the dark about a plan or the lack of one. He would never have gone back on a plan that he previously scrapped. When it came down to it, he would have let me–rather,  _made_  me–keep my gun because he would rather me have it for my safety than he for his.

"Figured it out yet?" The man asked me, and when I looked up at him, he had a  _different_  appearance. "Of course, I thought when you started asking all of those questions, I thought you'd have figured it out sooner."

My mouth wouldn't open; this wasn't the time for a sarcastic remark about him or how he was an asshole or anything for the sort. If I let one of those slip or if I didn't comply, the entire operation could be put in jeopardy.

"Why–why do you look–?"

"Different?" He completed my sentence as he morphed again, turning from brown-haired to black-haired. His eyes went from hazel to brown, and his clothes morphed from a uniform to street clothes. "You haven't been here for very long, have you? Regardless, Byakuran would like to have a word or two with you and he sent me to fetch you. Hopefully you can get this solved before any unnecessary death is caused by your friend's lack of compliance."

_How could I be so stupid? I knew there was something wrong, but I couldn't put my damn finger on it. How did he morph in the first place... how is that possible?_

He shoved me once more and left me in this dark room, but it wasn't all dark, I realized, as the large window depicted the beginnings of the sun's rays came into view.

"Hmm… so I take it the rumors are true, then?"

An unfamiliar, airy voice spoke to me as I came to somewhat terms about where I was, that I had been too dense to figure out I had been betrayed, and the conditions of someone from the past being in the future in the first place.

_Byakuran._

"You've come to see if I'll allow you to go back to the past, right?"

"Well, yeah." I bit back an "obviously" when I realized that if I wasn't polite, I would probably not have much of a choice between what he (more than likely) wanted in exchange. "I just don't want to screw up time even more than it already is."

"I understand… but if you stay, maybe you can change the future for the  _better_." The man, whose hair was whiter than the snow on the ground at occasional times of year, stared at me intently behind his purple eyes. A purple tattoo below his eye stared back at me as if it was a third eye, and prompted me to talk.

"What do you mean?"

_I'm not going to be hoodwinked twice._

"Hana," he gently spoke my name before getting up from the comfortable chair he'd been sitting in. "You do realize… that the future… the way it is… it's entirely  _your fault_. You should stay behind and clean up your mess. The other you came to me with the same request; she wanted to go back to the Namimori that she knew and loved…  _not this mess_."

The gentle tone that he had been speaking with slowly dwindled away to nothing but hate.

"However, as to not 'screw up time' as you put it, I did not send her back. I locked her inside of her own memories, where she lives through things that you haven't even experienced yet."

I tensed, wondering what to say next.

_How do I convince this guy to put me back where I belong if he's so hell-bent on making me stay here?_

"I understand that it's a lot to take in," the man sympathized, his face giving way to the human emotion of pity. "You may take a seat. I imagine Sho-chan and his friends will be here soon, accusing me of kidnapping you… just like last time."

_Sho…-chan?_  I took a moment to let that one sink in, but I was desperate to continue the conversation:

"How is… the future  _my_  fault? I'm sure there's–"

"How isn't it? If you never existed, anything that has happened or is happening in my present–your future–will have never happened. Whether that's for the best or not, that's up for interpretation."

I watched him lounge back, but suddenly he gave me a wickedly-sweet smile. "After all, I never do favors without favors in return. What do you say we make a deal? I'd never want to torture the kid who hasn't even done anything yet, I suppose."

"Deal?" I crept closer to him, wondering what he meant by this. In all of the crime shows that I watched on TV, whether real or fake, I knew that deals usually went well in the house's favor.  _I had better be careful._

A loud bang disrupted me as artificial light poured in behind me; the door had been broken. It laid in tatters against the wall, the hinges refusing to snap. Gio was the first one that I spotted as he sheathed his sword.

"Found her."

I turned back to Byakuran, hoping that he would still hold up on his word of a 'deal' even though we had been interrupted. However, he looked mildly amused as Shoichi began to speak:

"So, you've really stooped  _that_  low, huh?"

"Ah, Sho-chan! You've made it just in time for me to propose a deal to Miss Hana!" Byakuran stopped as I turned back and forth between Shoichi and himself, but he let out a faint smile. "I will put you back into the past from which you came if only you follow my instructions."

"Okay," I hurriedly replied, but I watched Shoichi's face turn from angry to fearful. I could have guessed that he didn't want me to hear anything that Byakuran might reveal.

"There's only one condition that I have for you, but it must be followed to the furthest extent. Am I clear?" Byakuran's eyebrows rose, and I nodded before he continued on: "The one thing that destroys you later in your life is…"

"You  _can't_  tell her too much!" Shoichi interrupted as he rushed toward Byakuran, stopping steps away from him. "It may ruin  _everything_!"

"I won't; if you want everything to go back to normalcy, then I suggest that you kindly step down."

Byakuran gave Shoichi an identically-sweet smile as Shoichi quieted down and moved in beside me as Byakuran continued:

"The one thing that destroys you later in life is love. You can interpret that any way you want, since Sho-chan won't allow me to tell you anything. Instead of love, lust for power."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I stared into the persuasive eyes of this Byakuran guy, wondering exactly what he meant by that final statement. His stare gave nothing away as he discretely raised his eyebrows.

"I'm sure you'll understand in the near-future," He mused, stealing a glance at Shoichi beside me. He stared ahead at nothing, his eyes wide as he obviously fought against the thought of speaking out any more. "After all, changing one little thing will help to change all of the chaos that has happened in Namimori."

_But… what if it changes_ _ everything _ _?_

I could almost hear the thought in Shoichi's mind. He stiffened for a moment, disarming himself, before finally nodding.

"It's your decision, Hana."

I looked back at Byakuran, whose face had relaxed into a small smirk of triumph; he already knew what my answer would be. If he wanted me to change the future, if it really was as bad as he said that it was, it was true that I was the only hope for this future–my future–to change.

"So, what if I don't?" I challenged, wondering if there would be some sort of repercussion anyway if I didn't do it the way that this Byakuran had asked me to.

"Put simply, the future will not change from the way that it is right now. Pain, death, and hate will swirl around Namimori forever."

Byakuran laughed softly at the end of the sentence, almost as if this was not even a big deal whatsoever, but my world was as if it was falling apart. I couldn't afford to wait to make a decision, and this decision should be easy to make; if I did as I was told, my future and everyone else's would be set… or at least, it'd be better than it was in  _this_  future.

"Fine. I'll abide by your terms on the basis that you bring future-me back and if you put me back in the past."

Byakuran clapped his hands together as he smiled once again. "Great; I'm glad we had this discussion! Come here and I'll straighten things out."

I watched as he stood up and beckoned me toward the door, but just as I began to follow, the familiar sound of sirens in the distance filled the room.

"It seems as if your little heist led to a police standoff," Byakuran joked, continuing on his journey to what appeared to be a door blended into the wall. "I'll leave you all to deal with that. I'll be back with your little friend."

I glanced back to see the horrified faces of the people whom I had only met for a full day, but each one of them meant something new to me.

_To think that I'll meet these people in the near-future…_

My hand made its way to my face, and I slowly waved it back and forth, letting my eyes rest on each face individually before finally stopping on Shoichi.

"I'll see you in a bit, I guess." I muttered, turning around to follow Byakuran and making my way away from them as quickly as I could. The others had sprung into action in the wake of the voices of police not too far from where they were standing. No matter, I couldn't escape Shoichi's last words to me before I closed the door and he turned away: "We'll be friends no matter what you decide to do, Hana."

The door closed behind me, and I rested my thoughts on those words. What they could have meant, I had no idea quite yet other than the obvious.  _I have an inkling that they may go deeper than even that._

"Are you planning to take forever and get us arrested, or do you want to go back to your precious past?"

I nodded and stepped into the bright, machine-filled room and took a deep breath.

I am going back to the past.

* * *

"Oof!" I muttered in pain when I hit a hard surface and realized that there were all these different items sitting below me, including the soft surface of clothing. "Damn, as if I'm not already finished with this crap."

The room was dark, and I recognized that I was in Shoichi's closet once more. I took a deep breath.

_Finally._

The door cracked open, and I froze for a moment, remembering the whole deal with his mother, even though it seemed so distant now. My heart rate began to speed up, until I heard a familiar voice:

"Huh?"

The door swung open the whole way, and the younger, current Shoichi stared at me from the outside of the door.

"H-Hana! U-uh, where'd you go? I-I thought–?"

I stood up shakily on my bare feet, breathing in deeply as I realized the life-threatening danger was gone.

"How long has it been?" I asked, making my way out of his closet, breathing in deeply.

"I-it's been three hours," Shoichi mumbled, bringing his hand up to his glasses-less face. "It's six o'clock… I was doing my homework…"

_Only three, huh?_

I felt the tiredness of not sleeping for twenty-four hours on my eyes as I hustled over to my shoes and sitting down beside them.

"Where are your glasses? I thought you had them on."

"I-I broke them. It was an accident, but…"

_It's just like future-Shoichi said; he broke his glasses when he got frustrated about my sudden disappearance._

"That's great," I closed my eyes for a full moment and allowed the silence to take me. The sound from Shoichi's room faded and I was left with only my own thoughts.

_It's not as if the future is going to happen tomorrow. Well… it is, but that's not what I meant. I've got years to work out how I'm going to live up to Byakuran's promise, and I'll do just that. For now, I'll just tackle all of my problems one at a time… and I_ _ will _ _rely on power, not love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> (Frequently asked): Is "Gio" Giotto in disguise or something?!
> 
> Nope. That's impossible. Giotto is long dead by now. I hope you took note of his appearance in this chapter; I realize that I may not have made Gio's appearance clear enough, so I tried really hard to wipe out any discrepancies here. (If you still couldn't see or if I was too vague; Gio has dark skin and smooth black hair, but also sharp, blue eyes). His past is something that I want to expand on later in the story because I think it's kinda cool and thoroughly thought-out, but it safely has nothing to do with Vongola Primo.
> 
> What's Hana's deal? Why isn't she taking the chance to shoot people? Aren't guns awesome or something in KHR?
> 
> Well, didn't I say there was going to be some sort of… fears system in the first chapter? Don't worry; this won't be the only one, either. –evil author laughing in the distance- Just imagine the possibilities..!
> 
> What does Byakuran do in the future that warrants this huge office building?
> 
> Well, not only is he the head of his respected family (Gesso) (not the Millefiore; according to this "future", that A) hasn't happened yet, or B) never happened at all) (no spoilers from me; you may take your pick of which choice you think it is for now!), but he also has become a successful business owner and settled himself in Namimori. It really isn't a question of how he got the money to finance the business's building, but what exactly does he work on? Why? Stay tuned for the future to find out! (I know it seems like a really lame explanation, I know, but I believe that this may be important to my plot, so I can't say too much!)
> 
> Why'd Byakuran ask something like that?
> 
> Well, think about it; sometimes love is great, but sometimes it gets in the fricking way. Desire for power is sometimes great, but sometimes it gets in the fricking way. Supposedly, she went for love in the future, so Byakuran told her to do the opposite to change the future. Maybe he genuinely wants the future to change. Maybe he has an ulterior motive. I'll leave that up to you guys for now.
> 
> What was up with the guy who could "morph"?
> 
> I've got plot to back that up, but Hana has been kept in the dark about probably 95% of the things that I have planned to happen at this point in time... and, therefore, you are also going to be kept in the dark until I can reveal all of the (cool) things I have planned.
> 
> What's the next arc going to be?
> 
> The next chapter will explain it all. Although right now, I can't imagine it being too difficult to guess after this arc and its contents!
> 
> Will these characters make a comeback sometime in your story?
> 
> Guessing by this being the future, yeah, definitely. I worked hard on some of their personalities; too hard to let them go so soon. I'm just hoping that it'll be soon enough, you know?
> 
> Tsuna? Vongola? Important canon characters?
> 
> Soon.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	8. Christmas Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, spousal violence, the beginning of the next arc, a longer bridge chapter, and a somewhat-major time-skip.

_ Flashback: _

_It's not as if the future is going to happen tomorrow. Well… it is, but that's not what I meant. I've got years to work out how I'm going to live up to Byakuran's promise, and I'll do just that. For now, I'll just tackle all of my problems one at a time… and I_ _ will _ _rely on power, not love._

* * *

Chapter Eight: Christmas Rose

_A well-known English plant, the black hellebore or "Christmas Rose" is a true Christmas flower. Sometimes known as the "Snow Rose" or "Winter Rose," it blooms during the depths of winter in the mountains of Central Europe. One of the easiest and most rewarding of garden plants to grow; the ability of the Christmas Rose to bloom during the darkest months of the year when everything else is frozen solid makes it a valuable asset to any garden. The Christmas Rose produces flowers from late Fall until early Spring. It's roots are poisonous and it is so called the "Christmas Rose" because it is supposed to be planted near the door so that Christ may come into the room._

_Meaning:_ _allay my disquiet, restlessness, and/or worry._

* * *

Youth is a fragile state of mind.

One slipup, one little mishap, could break one out of the bliss. One does not have to be young to experience youth; in essence, it is but a feeling of nostalgia; an episode of déjà vu.

That is how I have chosen to describe my schooling from the moment I got back from the future. Nothing truly changed; my fourteen-year-old self changed nothing of her usual routine until she was nearly seventeen.

However, I made sure to uphold my side of the futuristic deal; never once did I look for a love interest throughout my years of schooling. I forced myself out of that behavior that seemed almost habitual in a school setting. I made sure not to draw attention to it by using my favorite cop-out: "no one interests me." Seizing power was a much more difficult task, being how there was no power to seize as a mere student… unless I wanted a run-in with the infamous Hibari Kyoya. That kind of power was uninteresting to say the least anyway.

Shoichi and I slowly became best friends throughout our secretive friendship, as his mother still had no idea. My mother didn't seem to care much; after meeting him, she figured that he would be a good tutor for me, and that he was. My father did not seem to care much, given that he was never home in the first place.

Kyoko and Yamamoto hardly changed in the last three years; the both of them were still tighter than two fingers stuck in a Chinese finger trap. The only difference that is note-worthy would be that they both began to hang out with Sawada Tsunayoshi, who happens to be one of the most pitiful human beings that I've ever laid eyes on. Whether they took pity on him or not, I suppose befriending those who have no friends themselves is the noble thing to do. Sawada's gang grew larger by the year, and I was proud of my friends for aiding him through his last years of what would be considered "easy shit" while we most of us went forward to higher education. Yamamoto, Kyoko and I had been somewhat growing apart for some time now; the more time I spent with Shoichi, the less time we had to hang out together. I didn't mind it too much; most of the time that I used to spend with the two of them was spent with two-way conversations between them that I could never hope to understand anyway.

School truly never changed; our class lost and gained students with every passing year, just like any other school would. People moved out so new people could move in. Trees were chopped down so new ones could be planted. Many would argue that you should leave that old tree to prosper and grow. Others would exclaim that the old must go out so the new could come in.

Now that I am nearly seventeen, I set my sights on schooling and I hoped to do something important; be a member of the government or maybe even a policewoman or a lawyer. I wanted to be somebody that the children looked up to and the parents could depend on. While the potential for any of that seemed far away, it didn't hurt in the slightest to look forward to it.

My final year of schooling is around the corner and I should make the most of it.

Right?

* * *

It is the second-to-last week of our final term on Friday, March 20th at 2:54pm.

I stared anxiously at the clock at the front of the room for it to strike that five with such a passion that one would have thought the clock itself was ready to head out of this cluttered classroom. I hadn't shared my homeroom, 2-B, with any of my friends this year. It was boring and I only ever looked forward to getting out of school to see Shoichi.

That kid had been out of school for a couple of days, thanks to his graduation ceremony that was set to take place next week. He'd landed a near full-ride scholarship to some university in Tokyo for engineering. While Tokyo isn't too far away (a two-hour drive at best), it'd still be an odd next year if we hardly got to see each other.

The clock finally hit its mark and the chime of the school's bell sounded. It quickly became an undertone to the students who packed their bags loudly and began to talk to each other as our teacher muttered something about an assignment that would be due the following week.

_I don't think anyone around here needs another assignment. We're all ready for break at this point._

I hustled out of the school, allowing the spring sun to flutter across my pale skin. The birds chirped in the distance and the voices of the students around me hummed in my ears. As I adjusted myself to the glare of the sun, I glanced around at the familiar surroundings. It wasn't long until I spotted a familiar splash of red in a sea of brown and black hair, and I hurried my way toward it, nearly tripping over my own feet.

"I don't know why you still bother," I started, approaching Shoichi before stopping and sizing myself up. "You're not even in school anymore; who wants to sit outside and wait at a time like this?"

Shoichi adjusted his band tee and reached for his glasses. "Don't be so sour. It's Friday and it'll be one of the last full-time days that we'll be able to hang out."

I was tempted to sass him as per usual, but he was ultimately correct; he'd be going off to college soon, and who the hell knows if we'd still be friends afterward?

" _Sure_ ," I relented. "What'd you plan on doing? Hopefully not work?"

Shoichi stepped in beside me, acquiring his slow speed of walking.

"No."

I looked up at his troubled features; it was rare to receive such a definite answer from this guy, who was known to go off on rants about anything and everything from time to time. There was no give in his sprightly demeanor, but I could feel the tension stacking between us. Joyous students began their walks home and soon passed the both of us, talking to each other in high spirits as the sun peaked in and out of the clouds.

"Don't you remember when you used to be taller than me? Now, you've got to look up to see me, huh?"

Shoichi burst into the silence between the two of us, smiling a smile that was nothing short of the usual.

I took the interaction with caution, but I played along as I gave into the deceptiveness of his smile.

"Of course I remember. Hell if I know how you suddenly turned into a beanstalk and grew. Testing out something new with genetic mutation, are we?"

I earned a chuckle out of him, but that was about it. After that, it was just a stony silence. On such a bright, warm Friday afternoon… I could only feel the spike of cold realization between us.

Our friendship–the closeness of it, rather–was running out of time.

* * *

My house appeared in our sight after ten minutes of walking down streets that were associated with nearly too many memories to count. The usual setting wasn't anything special; a breeze had begun to sweep through Namimori and it swept through my hair.

Shoichi kept a steady pace beside me before I finally stopped only mere steps before my home. The dark roof and exterior was almost spooky in the sea of lightly-colored houses around mine, regardless of the chirping birds and the breezy weather.

"Do you think I'll be able to get into college?" I blurted out. "I mean, you're half-genius. You got all of these amazing grades and you're a math and science geek which is really valuable to many colleges, so it's no wonder you got in with such a good scholarship, but… do you really think that someone like me could even hope for higher education?"

I waited a moment before Shoichi answered, but he only pushed up his glasses and continued forward.

"I can't use grammar for shit; I'm surprised they even let me in. I'm sure it won't be as difficult for you as you're making it out to be right now, Hana."

I stood there in a daze of anger.

_He can't possibly understand. He's always been smart; he went to that private school for the smart kids. His understanding of how the world and the whole universe might possibly work is crazy, not to mention he KNEW about time-travel in the future. The things I could tell him about the person he was… or will become…? I'll never be that smart… how could I be sure that I will amount to anything ever?_

My anger melted to guilt when I realized that that Byakuran guy had literally entrusted the future to me. I was that turning point, the gateway, the split in the road to the outcome of the future. According to him, I am supposed to be the one who can stop that whole mess from happening.

_Going to the future screwed me up! Whenever I think about stuff normal kids my age think about, I have to think about the grand scheme of things. I don't get to think about just college. I get to think about what will become of everyone else when I go to college._

"Quit acting so sorry for yourself," Shoichi snapped me out of it with his impatience. "There really isn't anything to worry about. It's just another school for more learning."

"Since when did you get so snippy with me?" I asked sharply, adjusting my bag to fit comfortably on my right side. "Isn't it  _normal_  to worry about your future?"

_His attitude today! It's not nearly this bad on a usual basis!_

Shoichi had always been somewhat short-tempered at times. It usually depended on the time of day and his current emotional and physical state, but it usually wasn't anything to even discuss. If anything, it ended up being my fault for him getting irritable; whether it be my mouth or my ideals.

Today was neither, yet the irritation flooding from him was far above the normal rate.

"I just don't understand why you have to worry about it to this extent. Nothing's going to happen that isn't supposed to happen."

_The things I could argue right now!_

I bit my tongue with the sole purpose not to say something that would prompt an explanation. Keeping my accidental expedition from Shoichi had worked well, yet he always seemed to find a way to say something that led me to thinking about it.

"You don't understand," I choked on all of the words and phrases that I wanted to say to him. "I don't know where to go from next year."

I could hardly speak on the topic. There shouldn't be anything to hide; if anything, someone should be there with me to make sure that I am doing the right thing… but I can't let him know about the horrid future that we were put in.

The one that I put all of us in.

As expected, Shoichi only shrugged off my worry and continued the short distance to my house. I followed at a slower pace, making sure not to say anything more on the topic. I looked up just in time to stop myself from running into him as he paused.

"Isn't that your mom's car?"

I slid out from behind him and took a look. The maroon piece of garbage that sat before us was my mom's car indeed… but why was it here?

"She's supposed to be at work. I wonder why she's at home..."

Suspicion crept into my thoughts as paranoia began to take place of my rationality.

What if she got laid off? Did she quit her job? Did something happen today?

_That'll be the last thing that any of us need! I sure hope everything's okay…_

I glanced back at Shoichi before heading toward my house. His eyebrows creased in thought, and I could tell he was just as worried as I was.

"I'll come with you," I heard him mutter before I zoned out of conversation.

I held my breath, listening for any sounds, but the only sound that I could hear were noises from nature; the wind and the birds. Nothing sounded fishy so far.

The plain door to my house was closed as usual, and I crept toward it as quietly as I could, wondering if there would be a surprise waiting for me inside or something to that effect. I took a deep breath and nudged the door open, to which it swung and hardly hit the opposing wall.

I could hear the sudden sobbing now, as if someone finally had begun to let out the remainder of their feelings. I stepped inside of my house and frantically looked around for the source. I found it as I stepped into our simplistic kitchen.

My mother was standing there, sobbing and crying, holding onto another person.

My father.

I almost scoffed aloud as the cold realization swept over me; I'd been worried for absolutely no reason.

This deadbeat hadn't been home for  _months_ ; he used to come home for a week out of every month, but recently he'd just declined to come at all, leaving my mother some really depressing messages on our home phone and saying that he was sorry. According to him, his job was getting more difficult and it was harder to find breaks in his "schedule".

I wanted nothing to do with him, and I was beginning to become happier that he was gone, regardless of the emotional pain that it caused my mother. The stress that came with having a stranger in my house every so often was gone, but now, it was back.

Shoichi had followed me inside and he stopped just behind me; I could nearly feel the pressure of his shoes to the ground next to my own foot.

I turned on my heel and started toward my room when I noticed the absence of my mother's sobbing.

_I wish I could just escape him entirely._

My father's stature had changed completely; the belly that he had been developing was nearly completely gone. His dark hair had begun to lighten with the presence of stress, and his features were beginning to wrinkle up. His glasses appeared to be just a little bit more than dirty and he looked overworked.

"Hana, your father is back from his job! I-I just got this email on my lunch break and–"

I stopped listening to her babble about how surprised she was about his sudden arrival. His whole  _presence_  is bullshit. He's only back because my birthday is exactly a month from today. Unlike her, I don't play his game. I see through what he does; he goes out and works and comes back to give us our monthly "paycheck" just to leave again.

All he meant to me was extra money.

"Hana, it's great to see you." His deep voice echoed in the emptiness of our home as my mother drew to a close. Those gray eyes stared straight into me. "It's been so long."

I managed a nod before turning and allowing my footsteps to echo as I made my way upstairs to my room. After a few moments, Shoichi followed me as well. It was nothing but pure silence as I made the immediate left turn to my room and waited until Shoichi joined me to close it.

The familiar aroma comforted me as I took a deep breath.

"I don't understand why he's here again. I wish he'd leave and never come back; I hope my parents finally file for some sort of divorce or some shit after I go off to higher education. I know they've only been keeping this together for me, but they're not doing me any damn favors."

I raised my leg to kick at the door, but Shoichi stopped me as he cleared his throat.

"I understand how you feel."

My foot slowly lowered itself down to the carpeted flooring and I turned my lamp on in my room, even though it was hardly even four in the afternoon.

"I understand because I think that's how my parent's marriage worked out for a little while… then everything fell apart and our family split up forever. I never got to see my sister again."

Shoichi's voice began to crack, but he stopped talking and took a deep breath.

_Consider how he feels._

"Hana," he said my name as I turned around and I watched him sit down on my bed. The bleakness in his gaze shone in the artificial light. "How is it that you're able to stay so strong at times like this? How can you watch your family tear itself apart and not lose yourself in the process?"

The questions themselves took me aback. I had no answer that I could express in words because there were so many factors.

I hate my father.

My mother should have gotten out earlier.

He never cared for me in the first place.

He always put himself before our family.

We don't need him.

Maybe I'm selfish and I think I already have enough to worry about. Maybe that's why I could care less about it. Maybe that's why I'm not going to cry myself to sleep tonight.

The countless times Shoichi as a kid probably cried that his father wasn't around anymore were too many to count. If anything, he hadn't seen his father for ten years or more and here he was, in my room, nearly brought to tears about a situation that wasn't even his but reminded him like so.

Am I selfish or am I realistic?

Are they possibly the same damn thing in disguise?

I stared ahead and fought for the words to say in comfort, but I had none. There just isn't anything that I can do for a wound so large and infected like this, being as standoffish as I am.

"Maybe it's because I'm stubborn as hell," I offered, taking a seat in front of him before adding onto my idea. "That's what you always say, anyway. I'm always doing things without thinking deeply enough and I feel things without looking deeper into them. Once I make up my mind, it's too hard to change it. I can't change the way I feel about my father because I won't let myself change it. He'll always be a snake to me."

Shoichi stripped himself of his glasses that were beginning to fog up and he furiously tried to clean them using his shirt. "How can you feel the emotions but not let them get to you?" His voice shook tremendously as I fought for the right way to explain it without being vague or insensitive.

"It's like having three layers of clothing. There's the first layer that you show to everybody on the outside. The second layer is the one that only some people know about, say, your best friends. The final layer, the one touching your skin, is the layer that only you know about. They say it's the one that you truly are. I guess you could say that I have more than three layers. Each time I feel an emotion, I peel one off to give people something to look at. After all, it's gotten me this far, hasn't it?"

I looked up after the explanation to see Shoichi staring down at me. His features were no longer filled with despair, but hope.

"I'll have to test out that theory someday," he said, breathing in deeply before putting his glasses back on and cracking a small smile. "Maybe we'll both be able to show each other the second layer one day."

The future, the people I had met, made an appearance in my mind at that very moment and I fought to keep myself under control. One day, he would show that second layer to me, and the future that I had gotten a glimpse of had proved it.

"Maybe we will," I concluded, agreeing with him as simply as I could so as to not show any interest in the conversation about the future. "I was going to ask you something while we're emotionally vulnerable; do you think you can tell me what was up with your attitude earlier?"

I earned a small chuckle from my friend as he fought to keep the threat of his childhood memories out of his head.

"You'll think I'm nothing but a misplaced bottle of water if I tell you."

"Try me."

"It really was nothing; I was just… thinking about how we won't be able to meet up after school anymore and how you're in a hurry to get where I am. I would kill to be held back just so we could have one more year."

I stared ahead before allowing that to register.

_So what he's saying is… that I need to be less concerned about where I'm going and more concerned about where I am._

The dots connected. The stars aligned. His anger made sense; if I spent too much time worrying about the future, then I'd be too afraid and distant to remember that I'm in the present.

"You're way too keen for your own good," I muttered before messing with my tangled hair. "Besides–"

I stopped there as the sound of something breaking downstairs interrupted me.

_Crash, clink!_

I stared at my doorknob as it shivered with the amount of disturbance going on below us.

"The hell was that?" I asked aloud, silently hoping for an answer.

To be truthful, getting up wasn't something I was willing to do. I didn't want to see my father's face, and I was hoping that that breaking sound was an accident. I didn't want to have to see my injured mother with my father… I didn't want to see any of it at all.

Shoichi quietly volunteered to look and I let him slip past me as I waited for a sound, a confirmation, that I was worried over nothing.

"Clean that shit the  _fuck_  up! Aren't those the damn dishes that we bought on our honeymoon?"

A string of swears flew out of my father's mouth and I yanked open my door and found Shoichi standing between my stairs and my bedroom door, frozen. The images that my whole family situation brought back to him were probably indescribable, judging by how only his hands shook as my parents continued to scream at each other.

"Shoichi," I said his name just as something else broke and my mom's sobs filled the house once more. "Shoichi, you've got to go home."

I fought to keep calm now; my father's unpredictability was… unpredictable. Even though my parents were all happy and smiley what seemed like mere  _minutes_  ago, now they're fighting and throwing things at each other.

"I'm not g-going to leave you h-here with th- _this_."

Shoichi's voice was obviously shaking as he fought to keep his own sense of calm. I saw the way he wanted to hide, to scream, to cry. Regardless of what he felt, he had no intention of leaving me here to deal with them by myself… but there wasn't any other choice.

"It's okay. I'll walk you to the front door, and you can text me on my phone once you get home. I'll be fine."

I took a deep breath, and in my best attempt to be brave, I took the first step.

" _ **Dammit**_ , Akahana! Stop saying that you love me! What the hell's the point in  _that_?"

I held my hand out to a stunned Shoichi who only stared blankly at me as the fight below us continued.

"I  _love_  you, Masato!  _Why_  do you have to be this way?  _Why_  are you doing this to me?"

I took a deep breath as I let my mother's cry go in one ear and out of the other.

"Let's go outside, Shoichi."

His stare was only blank as he stared ahead, and I noticed the threat of tears streaming down his face again. However, I only smiled and encouraged him silently as my whole world began to fall apart. Even though my knees knocked together and I was beginning to get dizzy from the stress, I sucked it up.

"Let's go outside."

Finally, feeling drifted back into his features and he stared at my hand, gingerly taking it as we both descended the stairs. The world shook beneath us, above us, around us, but together, we were invincible. Nothing could harm one of us when the other was around.

It was for those short moments when my father's hurtful words could not reach me, and my mother's loud cries could not weaken me that I prided myself for, not for my ability to produce layers. Shoichi even seemed more content as we reached my front door and I opened it and closed it behind us so that the fight was only distant.

"You should come over." Shoichi's voice only shook minimally this time as he breathed, but I shook my head quickly before he could say anything else.

"I can't. It's okay though; text me. I'll be fine."

_I'll be fine._

How could I say those words with such confidence when I knew that I was only the exact opposite of "fine"? I had no idea what would happen to me, yet I am "fine".

Shoichi looked at me and shook his head before grabbing me by the arm. "We can walk around for a while, if you want. Why would you subject yourself to all of that… screaming?"

I shook his hand off of me and I declined his offer once more.

"If I leave, I don't know what they'll do to me. I'll take my chances up in my room, okay? I'll be fine. Text me if you need anything."

My voice began to tremble at the thought of going back into the house as the voices got louder and more distressed.

_I never want to go back. I_ _ never _ _want to go back._

I felt a pulse in my throat as I quickly stepped away from my friend and toward my house, stepping inside and allowing myself to be overflowed with hateful words and the sounds of thrown objects.

Shoichi's face was bunched up with emotion, but it soon loosened as he understood. I couldn't just leave, no matter what kind of person I might be deep down. No matter how afraid I am, I can't just leave my mother to deal with it all by herself without any backup.

With a final glance my way, Shoichi turned around and left my house, travelling toward his uptown apartment building. I noticed his fists begin to ball up in frustration, but I could do little but watch him go.

_I wish I could have gone with you, honestly. I can't leave my mom alone. I can't._

Clearing my head of regretful thoughts, I allowed air to fill my lungs and in a swift motion, let all of it out in a sigh. The sound rolled over my head as I opened the door to go back inside of my house.

I had no idea that I would never have the same outlook on my life, on my friends, by the time the next day rolled around.

* * *

It was eleven o'clock at night.

The screaming had finally stopped and the objects being thrown were not able to be heard anymore.

The remnants of tears on my face were still there; I'd showered three times and I calmed myself by texting Shoichi on my progress as he texted me back with advice and breathing exercises that would keep me sane.

I stared at his last text to me, which only read  _"Edit something – you always seem to have an editing-zone that you go in."_  and it made me smile. Alone, in my dark room with only my phone lighting my pathetic face up, I smiled.

I continued to smile, but that smile soon faded when I realized that someone stood in the door of my room, staring at me. They crept closer, and the closer they got, the more I recognized the smell of alcohol on their breath.

"What the hell–?"

I jerked as my wrist got grabbed by this person, whom I shone my phone's light on their face to reveal the dilated pupils of my father.

Fear kicked in as I took a deep breath in, dropping my phone onto the floor, as he grabbed at my long hair.

"You're coming with mer, like it or nawt."

The slur in his tone was only more fearsome the more that I listened to him, and I opened my mouth as I kicked, but that's when I heard the metallic sound of another machine. A machine that I'd become way too familiar with, even though it'd all happened in the future.

My father held a gun at my face, shaking, drunk and all, muttering the same sentence over and over again.

"You're commin' with mer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> A time-skip? Why?
> 
> Well, not everything happens within days of itself. Let's be honest; since when do you come back from the future and then everything immediately goes into action/falls into place? So I decided that I would time-skip it to make it easier on everyone. Plus, since everyone's older, it'll be easier for me to write accordingly. I was confused for a while on how to do a time-skip the correct way without skipping stuff/making it choppy, but I thought adding that little tidbit at the beginning helped a little bit. I originally planned to do this skip later, but I realized that if it wasn't done at an opportune time, it would be awkward. Therefore, this is the only time that I could fit it in and make it look natural at the same time.
> 
> (Idk I don't have anything to say this chapter so) Rushed ending?
> 
> I hope not! I couldn't think of any way to do it after spending too much time on friendship that didn't take too long because what happens next chapter is like "?!" not because of what happens but because of how much I fucked up my original plot. I'm gonna go back and edit it, too. Good luck, readers! :D
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> The whole 'layers' scenario comes from an old proverb about how you have three sides or something like that. I forget where I saw it, but technically I didn't come up with that one on my own. I'm not that brilliant.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	9. Anemone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, weapons, alcohol, kidnapping, and just your typical evil authoress’s handiwork.

  _Flashback:_

_“You’re coming with mer, like it or nawt.”_

_The slur in his tone was only more fearsome the more that I listened to him, and I opened my mouth as I kicked, but that’s when I heard the metallic sound of another machine. A machine that I’d become way too familiar with, even though it’d all happened in the future._

_My father held a gun at my face, shaking, drunk and all, muttering the same sentence over and over again._

_“You’re commin’ with mer.”_

* * *

Chapter Nine: Anemone

_The name “anemone” comes from the Greek word for “windflower.” According to Greek mythology, the anemone sprang from Aphrodite’s tears as she mourned the death of Adonis. Thought to bring luck and protect against evil, legend has it that when the anemone closes its petals, it’s a signal that rain is approaching._ _Depending on the species of anemone, their petal colors can be white, blue or red._

 _ Meaning: _ _fading hopes, forsakenness, and/or anticipation._

* * *

My gaze hazed over as my hair was continuously yanked. My neck twisted uncomfortably as my jumbled thoughts crowded my head. The fight-or-flight instinct that desperately wished to kick in, but I could hardly even hope to make the simplest move without my father countering it.

_How could he be so nimble even in this state?_

I could smell the alcohol seeping from him, and I could imagine that he’d had more than a couple of drinks to satisfy his fancy. The gun that he held was out of character; hell if I knew my bastard father carried one.

My hair jerked once again as I was mercilessly dragged from my bed. The cold metal that had been held to my neck disappeared as my scalp burned. My hair spread as my bedroom door opened and my father stumbled and pulled me even harder, yanking when I began to get too heavy.

_Hold back; you scream and he’ll shoot you. You don’t know what he’s going to do. Hold back. Where’s mom? Does she know what he’s doing? Does she know he’s been drinking? Is she asleep or… is she hurt?_

As a healthy substitute for screaming my throbbing pain away, I let out the occasional whimper as my eyes began to blur once more. My phone remained in my hand as I held tightly onto it, fearing that it may be my only hope for assistance once I got a chance. The dim lighting in my home made it damn-near impossible to see even three feet in front of me as I spiraled down the stairs, clutching onto my phone.

“Dammit,” my father cursed. “Dammit.”

I froze as he slid me toward the door, but my legs kicked out and I nicked him in the chin. He stood up and groaned before finally hauling me outside, forcing me on my feet. I fought the need to stand up to him, realizing the potential consequences, and I went as quietly as I could.

The air smelled of rain, regardless of how nice it’d been earlier today. The pain that now stung my left arm persistently nagged at my groggy conscience as I quickly concluded I must have scraped it falling down the stairs.

My father hastily pulled out the keys to my mother’s car from his pocket, wiping the sweat away from around his eyes.

_He can’t possibly hope to drive while intoxicated! We’re both going to die!_

The first wave of panic swept over me, but another subsided before it could reach me: if he died tonight, I would hardly ever have to worry about him again. Hell, if he had life insurance, mother and I would be rolling in cash!

I got into the backseat, taking my position behind the driver’s seat and keeping my head down.

_This way, he can’t even hope to point that damn thing my way. I’m not about to die in a drunken fit._

“What the hell…?” My father asked himself, and I peered over his shoulder to find him struggling to put the keys in the ignition.

If there were any night to bet on death, today would be it.

Blackness surrounded us, swallowing even the slightest bit of hope that I could have come across. My phone glistened in my grasp, but I dared not touch it until I had an idea of what would become of me.

The engine revved and as my father put the car into reverse, the maroon car swiveled and swished back and forth under his drunken hand.

_Am I prepared to die tonight?_

The question warranted only simple answers… but I found that I could only answer my own thoughts with the will to keep silent and let my father drive.

* * *

I had kept my mouth shut as well as my eyes, fearing every turn to be my last waking moment upon this Earth. A fair amount of swears tumbled out of my father’s mouth as he swerved and stepped on the gas and the brake as if it were a game.

_We’re either going to crash or get pulled over!_

I listened to other drivers honk their horns in despair and speed past our maroon mess of a vehicle. The screeching of tires was nothing short of unnerving enough as my phone vibrated in my hand. I hesitated to check it, but I quickly took it off of sleep-mode and read the message that was waiting for me:

_ Nerd-ichi _

_Fell asleep again? Night_

The light hit my face and I turned it off as fast as I could, but the image of this text burned itself into my mind.

He thought everything was okay and that it was just a normal night.

He thought I was _asleep_.

_What do I SAY to that?_

The car screeched to an abrupt halt, and I lurched forward, hitting my head lightly on the padded seat in front of me. My father fumbled for the keys and struggled with turning off the engine for a moment, but ultimately pulled the keys out of the ignition and stumbled out of the car.

I hid my phone in my hand, keeping it pressed into my thigh as I got out of the car, shaking as I closed the door and took in my surroundings. I stood in an unfamiliar part of Namimori, even if it truly was only fifteen minutes away from my own home. The smell of cigarette smoke and something odd mixing in with it wafted up from the building in front of me, which I stared at for a good millisecond before I recognized where I was.

The window of which I looked out of mere years ago–something that supposedly happened ten years from that day–stared straight back at me. I was in the same place I had been in the future. It all began to make sense; the smell was different, yes, but the building I stared at was a younger-looking version of the one that the future unfolded in.

“Come on,” my father’s groggy voice urged me as he stood in front of me impatiently.

I advanced forward, careful to let my father maintain the lead and I prepared myself for what might be waiting inside.

Why the hell would my father know about something situated across town that seemed to be nothing but a home that was beginning to fall apart?

Why would he take _me_ here?

My father clumsily stepped up to the front porch, scrambling for the doorbell. I glanced around, but I couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary other than the glint of the stolen car behind us as the lone streetlight hit the maroon tint. To my surprise, he didn’t even bother to ring the doorbell and kicked at the door. With a proper inspection, I realized that it was reinforced with a cage-like cover.

_It’s sure as hell not the exterior of the run-down piece of garbage that I remember._

My father began to get impatient as he began to take a swing at the door once again, but the dark door opened up to reveal an equally-dark interior.

“What the hell’ve you been doing, Masato?” An unfamiliar voice exclaimed, pulling him inside and reaching for me before shutting and locking the reinforced door. “And why the hell do you smell like alcohol?”

I couldn’t hear an audible answer from the one who had dragged me here against my will, but the one who had previously been speaking had already begun to walk away.

“Get the hell away from the windows! Jesus Christ!”

I immediately recognized the scent of cigarette smoke within the residence. The smell stuck to every particle of air in the home and I cringed at the stench. I knew it would linger on my clothes long after I left this place.

“Finally back from your family visit, Masato?” A feminine voice spoke up to my shitfaced father, who stumbled around in an attempt to put one foot in front of the other.

My father gave a grunt in response as he slowed to a stop. The shirt he wore was stained with sweat as he rubbed at his miserable face. It was only a matter of time before I was scanned myself.

“Who the hell’s this?”

The male voice spoke once again and I squinted in the dark. The man who had spoken to me donned a Mohawk-like haircut that made his face look as round as a bowling ball and his facial features were much more pronounced because of it. The tiring look in his eyes bore into me as a pitiful light came on from an adjacent room.

“I think it’s his daughter,” the woman spoke. Her glittering eyes gave the illusion of a galaxy; mysterious yet unattainable. Her accent, the way that she pressed hard on her consonants and lifted up to lightly scrape over her vowels, told me that she was not of Japan. “He actually went through with what Paulo said.”

I waited to be directly spoken to, but it appeared that I had wasted my time. The woman’s light, sun kissed hair bounced as she made her way toward me. My heart pounded with every step that she took before she stopped in front of me, pushing past my father. I waited for her to say something as my sweaty hand pressed my phone into my thigh. My school uniform felt coarse and relatively abrasive as the woman fixed my blouse. Oddly enough, the way she weaved her fingers and her gentleness reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Straighten out your skirt,” she told me. As I reached down to do so with my one free hand, she continued: “Masato’s daughter; that’s you, correct?”

I nodded as she stepped back, examining me once more.

“It looks like he obtained you illegally. They’ll be looking for you. Rossie, could you dispose of the car they arrived in?”

The guy with the Mohawk responded to her request with a brisk nod and filed out of the house, shutting the door very carefully behind him. The woman continued to scan me as the silence settled itself over the home. My bare feet began to sting as they begged me to take the pressure off of them.

“She may be the only one coming,” another man came from the shadows, his hair covering his face in an absolutely unfashionable way. “Masato’s loyalty goes unmatched.”

_Loyalty? What the hell are they talking about?_

I began to become even more uncomfortable; what’d they mean that I was going to be the only one? Why do I have to be here in the first place?

My father began to stumble, which caught the attention of the newcomer, who quickly gave him a shoulder to rest on.

“I think he needs water,” the smooth voice of the eyeless man nodded toward the woman. “Violetta, take her down into the cellar.”

Suspicions loomed over me as I thought back: the cellar was the very same place in which we, everyone that I had met in the near-future, convened to find a solution to send me back to their past; my present.

Violetta, who I assumed was the odd-sounding woman, stared back at me for a minute before finally asking me to follow her. I obliged, but with caution. Shoichi had always warned me about being “too reckless” and “rushing into things” and I figured at a time like this, taking his advice would benefit me.

“Why do you act so mistrustful?” The woman’s gentle and quiet voice contrasted the way that her comrades acted toward me. “We wish no harm.”

I only nodded in response.

_If only I knew that for sure. After all, if this is something my father is associated with, I want no part of it._

Violetta led me toward the stairs, which I could have found by myself due to the mishap in the time-loop. She elegantly opened the door that led to them and pulled on the brass string that turned on the lonesome bulb that hovered over the questionable steps. I felt her nudge me toward the steps.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, but when I turned around, the door had already shut and the stairs wobbled the longer I stood in one place. I attempted to jiggle the doorknob, but it appeared to have been locked from the other side.

_Shit!_

The muskiness of the cellar was all but unfamiliar to me as I stood and waited for a sound to spark my interest or alert me to any possible dangers, but I couldn’t hear anything but my own quickened breathing.

My phone buzzed and I reluctantly pulled it closer to me as faded voices reached me, mumbling things to my father that he hardly seemed responsive to. My head swung back and forth, checking that the door was closed and that no one was before me as I took my phone off of sleep-mode again:

_ Nerd-ichi _

_I’ll be over first thing in the morning too so we can spend tomorrow watching movies or something at my place. Mom’s taking an overtime shift tomorrow. Night for real this time_

I quickly reread the message and pressed my phone to my thigh again. My heart hit my stomach and rebounded into my throat: by tomorrow, people would know that I was somewhere I was not supposed to be. By tomorrow, Shoichi would know that there was something wrong.

_Why does my father have to ruin everything?_

I began to step down from the top step, feeling the rough wood shake beneath my feet.

It was an umbrella term to say the least, but it was true. He’d ruined my mother, who could hardly get through a day without thinking about him. He’d ruined me personally, destroying my outlook on father figures. He’d ruined possibly my friendship today, taking me to this place, drunk and without an explanation.

My bare feet hit the bottom of the stairs and met the hard, concrete floor of an unfinished basement. The slap they made echoed and bounced off of the walls before I looked around this semi-familiar setting: the chairs around the table that I had sat at in the near-future seemed to lack the tarnish that I remembered. The table itself even appeared to be stainless and scratch-free.

I approached it, but shied away, the familiar feeling of dread cloaking me.

_If I was here in the future, does that mean I’ll be here forever?_

The thought, unlike many of my previous ones from this batshit-crazy night, was rational. The future hardly gave me any clues as to change it, thanks to the future version of my best friend. Did I make the mistake of staying at my home tonight rather than running off with Shoichi before coming back?

Dust surrounded me as I passed the table, quickly looking around to find more familiar things, but the only thing that I directly remembered was the curtain that hung limply in the corner. It wasn’t nearly as stained and dusty as it should have been in this vacant basement. Beside it were two beds, but one was full of dust and the other was not.

“Ya ain’t plannin’ on usin’ that thing, are ya?”

A thick accent spoke to me and I froze, waiting for someone to pop out with another weapon like I’d gotten used to. I was met with more stony silence as I turned around, expecting the Mohawk-guy or maybe the guy with the hair over his face despite the differing accents.

I turned around again and a face stared at me. My fear subsided as I recognized the face and the voice put together. On top of the cleaner bed, blonde hair and all, Silvano stared back at me. The friendly look that I remembered was nonexistent, though, as he stared at my hand that was pressed to my thigh.

“Ain’t gonna call the cops, are ya?”

My phone shivered in my grip as I moved it, cradling my phone between my stomach and hand.

“No… I wasn’t going to. I just… my friend…”

Words kept tumbling out of my mouth in a puzzle that no one was willing to solve. I kept trying to string them together coherently, but nothing understandable came out.

“…As long as ya ain’t callin’ no cops. Why’re ya here anyways?”

Cautious as he may be, he warranted an immediate answer: “My father brought me.”

The curious gaze that he set on me with his bright eyes fluttered to surprise. “Really? Ya gonna be the only one!”

_Only one?_

“Well, we gotta thing goin’ on which the members gotta bring their kids to work to get basic training but ain’t nobody done it yet! All of ‘em lied ‘nd said they ain’t got no kids while filing divorces ‘nd givin’ the kids to their counterparts. Ain’t even think anybody’d actually do it ‘nd put their kids up in here ‘cept for my momma ‘nd she been makin’ me do this stuff for years!”

He had shot off into his own conversation, getting visibly more excited the more he spoke on the topic.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, watching his excitability tune down into cautiousness again. “What do you mean by members and training?”

“Well,” Silvano wiped his hair out of his face before stealing a secondary glance at me. “I ain’t know how else to break it to ya, but ya’re here to work. Work as in… illegally work.”

“What kind of illegal work are you talking about?” My voice cracked as I came to terms with what was going on around me.

There was a reason for this home to be so under-the-radar, a reason for my father’s constant disappearances and his lies, a reason for the Mohawk-guy telling me to get away from the windows, and a reason why they are destroying the evidence that my father had stolen my mother’s car.

“Best hope ya’re good at math,” Silvano stood up and approached me, but hardly met my eyes as he broke the short silence. “’cuz we’re in the drug business.”

* * *

A man sat up in his room, watching the lights of other vehicles pass by on his pale, paint-stripped walls. Each one of them gave him a twinge of fear as the business became larger by the year. Buyers from all over Japan came to his place of business just to get _his_ product. They were only years away from becoming the biggest drug cartel in Japan.

The next step was only to hire more dealers, more people to swear their loyalty to him, more people to put on the front lines so the rear lines could keep their reign.

The short stubble of hair on his chin and the cocky smirk that never seemed to leave his face were mere signs of power and the feeling of it; feeling invincible. He, Paulo Albani, would die before he released his newfound power. Racking up millions and spending mere thousands to further the habits of others was near genius.

Now, there was only a couple more steps to take before gaining complete control, and one was dangerously close to being realized:

Find the Star-Child and harness his prowess to take over not just Japan, but the world.

_This is the future of the Todd Famiglia._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> Who… are these people?
> 
> Remember Fuuta’s almost-kidnappers? This is them. Well, some of them are canon and some are OCs. I thought I’d change a couple of things while I was there. The things I can do with this.
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> Ah yes, and next chapter will not be Hana-centric. Get ready.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	10. Snowdrop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, non-Hana-centric chapter, high-running emotions (as if that isn’t already the theme of this fic), anticlimactic as hell, and changing POVs throughout this chapter while continuing in third person for this chapter only.

_ Flashback: _

_Now, there were only a couple more steps to take before gaining complete control, and one was dangerously close to being realized:_

_Find the Star-Child and harness his prowess to take over not just Japan, but the world._

_This is the future of the Todd Famiglia._

* * *

Chapter Ten: Snowdrop

_The snowdrop flower is often described as having the appearance of three drops of milk spilling forth from a bright green stem. Unlike many other flowers – which are generous with their color variations – snowdrop flowers only come in a sophisticated, creamy white hue. Another thing that makes these flowers so unique is that they may sometimes flower early, often poking through layers of snow. Because of their simplicity and lack of major variation, there are really only two species that are regularly cultivated._ _The snowdrop flower is well-loved not only for its simple beauty, but for its distinct, honey-like scent._

_ Meaning: _ _hope, purity, and/or consolation._

* * *

The tired sun peaked through the blinds of the Kurokawa household, stirring a dreary-eyed Akahana from her slumber. The echoes of the previous night still rang in her head, but she dared not ask for the reason behind her husband’s sudden burst of anger. The birds fluttered by with gentle grace as they tweeted their good mornings to all life in the outside world.

Sleeping pills rested beside her side of the bed; sprawled around in her midnight haste to down a couple to drown out her own thoughts and tears. Masato’s side of the bed, however, was neatly misshapen. He was nowhere to be found, even though Akahana was _sure_ he’d plopped right down onto the bed after grabbing a couple of drinks.

“Hmm?”

Akahana’s sleek chestnut locks stuck out awkwardly as she neglected to tame them. Her bare feet sunk into the carpet as she slowly made her way out of her bedroom, peeking outside into the hallway. The home was eerily quiet; it was almost as if it was frozen in time. Not even the breathing of the other inhabitants could be heard over her thoughts.

Was he still angry with her?

How was Hana coping?

Would her own daughter be angry with the both of them for their decision to stick together, despite Masato’s unpredictability?

“Masato?”

Her almost-timid question hung in the air for more than a few moments as she came to the stairs. Nothing seemed to be out-of-place in the home, but the hair on Akahana’s arms stood up as she made her way down the stairs, listening carefully for a voice.

_“Let the water pour, let the screaming start, even the breaking of my heart begin,”_ she inwardly pleaded, making a sudden turn toward the front door, which was oddly ajar. _“As long as he is home to put my unrequited love to rest.”_

Her pale, slender hand latched onto the doorknob, but before she turned the knob, she took a deep breath.

_“I know it’s not there. Why am I checking? I know he’s gone. I know he’s gone.”_

Against her better judgment, she opened the front door anyway, and her heart dropped when she noticed the absence of her beloved maroon car.

_“I knew it,”_ Akahana’s breath became short as she delved into panic. _“I knew he’d taken it. Where’d he go? Why? Is it because of me? What about Hana?”_

Thoughts poured into Akahana’s mind, crowding it, suffocating it, until there was hardly room for rational ones. Her gentle hands travelled up her face, wiping away the first presence of tears, and continuing until they explored her misshapen hair. Gentleness turned to fierceness as she pulled at the roots of her scalp, allowing the searing pain to replace the mental stress put upon her brain.

The quietness of the home closed in on her as she slowly drowned in her own mind. The large front door shut as Akahana hurried upstairs to greet her daughter with the horrible news, tripping over her own feet in her haste.

Hana’s door loomed before her as Akahana pushed it open, expecting to see her daughter either sleeping or sitting at her desk, cranking away at her schoolwork. Instead, she was greeted with nothing but silence. Her daughter’s bed sheets were just as neatly misshapen as her father’s.

A anguished murmur escaped from Akahana’s lips as she closed the door to Hana’s room and opened it again. The scene never changed, even if she stood there and did the same trick ten times.

The reality then began to sink in:

Her baby–her only child and daughter–was gone.

* * *

An alarm ringing in the distance woke Shoichi, who scrambled for his glasses and checked the time on his own clock. It was 9:01am and he quickly grabbed for his phone. It lay beside his head, but when he unlocked it, there was a special surprise: not a single message from his best friend.

“Weird; I usually wake up to a message from Hana cursing me out for any obscure reason.”

The sun had already risen in the sky as it lightly dappled over his desk and some of the scattered miscellaneous papers atop of it.

Shoichi got up from his bed, rubbing his slightly-ruffled hair and adjusted his glasses once more.

“They’re so annoying,” he rambled, standing up and stretching for the first time that morning, pushing the damned things back into place before they slipped off of his face. “Hana’s right; I should look into getting contacts instead… even though they cost more as a whole…”

Shoichi dug through the heaps of clothes that had not yet been folded and put away in a laundry basket just beside his bed. A green shirt touched his left hand first and he settled with that, stripping himself of the dirty shirt he currently had on. The sound of the door closing from downstairs signified his mother finally leaving the two-story apartment that they both shared, and he let out a quick breath when thinking about last night.

It wasn’t as if Hana deserved any of the emotional turmoil that she received from her parent’s constantly fighting and arguing, right?

_“After all, I know what that feels like. I’ll just try to take her mind off of it and make her look forward to coming to my graduation ceremony next week. If anything, I’ll be able to get an idea of what she might want for her birthday next month. I’ve run dry of ideas: pens, notebooks, pencils… I’m going to have to put some work into what I want to give her this time because of our circumstance. It very well might be the last present we ever give to each other if we end up going separate ways.”_

The thought put his mind to a standstill. It was hard to even _consider_ not being friends with the fiery girl. It was she who had pushed him to disobey his mother’s number one rule: no girl would ever be allowed in their large apartment ever again. Not after his sister, anyway. Hell, Hana had even blatantly disobeyed his mother’s rules when the woman was _home_. The memory of how she hid in that closet to avoid his mother’s wrath was rather ripe.

Shoichi’s phone buzzed lightly, and just as he stuck his arms through the armholes in his shirt, he gravitated toward it. The first thought that entered his mind was of Hana and how she might have just woken up. Instead, it was only a text from his mother:

_Mom_

_9:18 AM_

_Shoichi; do not forget to begin packing for college. I do not want to be burdened with your clutter while my nest is empty. Keep in touch. I want at least one email a week. Make new friends, stay away from girls, and eat healthy. Do not forget to do your homework. Anything less than top of your class and I will pull you out of that place, understand? We can talk more about this when I return home tonight._

_Love xx_

Shoichi read and reread the message multiple times, ultimately deciding that it was a bunch of bullshit.

_“It’s as if I’m leaving tomorrow! I’ve got at least two months before the term begins! She didn’t even bother to tell me in person.”_

He texted back a quick “yes mom” and finished dressing, making his way to the restroom to clean.

_“Forgot to shower. I completely forgot to shower this morning. I’m such a useless bottle of shampoo.”_

With a groan, he quickly stripped down again and removed his glasses before jumping into the small, clean shower. The cold water cascaded down his face and body as he reluctantly began washing himself and his hair, thinking back to the text.

“I can’t believe she’d rather text me than tell me when she comes home,” he muttered aloud. “Do I really mean that little to her?”

It would definitely be a new low. Shoichi had been used to his mother caring about multiple things above her own son, but to know that she would almost rather discuss an important topic over a text rather than in person at a good time was almost baffling.

_“Still, she DID say that we would continue the conversation after she comes home. Maybe I’m counting my chickens before they hatch.”_

Shoichi took his time showering and got out, patiently waiting for his hair to dry, when he finally received another message. Lunging for his phone, he unlocked it and read the new message waiting for him.

_Private Number_

_9:34 AM_

_I suggest you make your way to the Kurokawa household as quickly as you can._

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shoichi stared at the message, puzzled. Who was this person and how did they manage to get his phone number? He couldn’t even check: the number was somehow “private”.

_“Anonymity aside, this must be someone who knows Hana judging by their summons to her place. If anything, it’s probably her mom. I don’t know why she would text in that manner, though.”_

Immediately, another text followed:

_Private Number_

_9:35 AM_

_Start your journey and continue until you are able to meet me. For now, farewell._

Shoichi stared at the second message and put it together with the first. The idea of it possibly being Hana’s mother went out the window in an instant.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he scrolled up and down to look at the two messages continuously, his wet hair dripping constantly onto the screen of his phone and hardly another thought in his head. “None of this adds up.”

_“What if something went wrong? Just like Hana usually says when she’s watching those crime shows on TV. It could be a ‘setup’… but then, I can’t just ignore it. I promised Hana that I’d hang out with her today.”_

Cold fear caused the hair on Shoichi’s arms and the back of his neck to stick straight up. Is _that_ why Hana hadn’t even left a text for him to read that morning? Is that why the groove, the rhythmic way in which he lived his life, had been thrown off from the start of the day?

Conflicted thoughts swirled in Shoichi’s head as he redressed himself and dried his hair.

If he went with his gut-feeling and texted Hana that he couldn’t make it, best case scenario, she might get angry and he’d seen his fair-share of that. Worst case scenario, she would be burdened with more arguing from her parents and he would feel guilty.

If he ignored his gut-feeling and went over there anyway, best case scenario would be that it was some elaborate joke that Hana had pulled on him. After all, with a smile on his face, he couldn’t find it in himself to put that past her. Worst case scenario, he could wind up hurt or even worse.

_“It’s obvious what the smart choice would be. It’s even more obvious what the pre-Hana version of me would do in a situation like this. The current me, the post-Hana version, isn’t that cautious anymore.”_

That was all it took to get him to hurry out of his apartment, jam the button on the elevator, jaywalk on major streets, and jog his way to Hana’s home, merely a mile away from his apartment. The dark home appeared in Shoichi’s line of sight and he only picked up his jogging pace. When he stopped at the front porch, he checked behind him twice before ringing the doorbell. His breathing came at a fast pace as he fought to keep it under control.

When there appeared to be no response, Shoichi tried his hand at ringing the doorbell again.

Just as he raised his hand to try a third time, footsteps behind him caused Shoichi to freeze where he stood.

“You’re here, too!”

A rather-feminine voice greeted him, and he turned around to see Sasagawa Kyoko and another boy by the name of Yamamoto Takeshi standing behind her. The two of them looked visibly older than the last time the four of them had had a joint hangout. Kyoko’s bright, spring dress stayed rigidly still and Yamamoto’s laidback posture set him apart from the tension in the air. He appeared to be sweaty and a bag with a bat sticking out of the back clung to his shoulder.

Shoichi’s eyebrows creased as the tightness of the situation set in.

_“I don’t get it. Was I not the only one who got the texts? This is getting uncomfortable.”_

A simple greeting sufficed for both Kyoko and Yamamoto and Shoichi reached for the doorbell once more. The stillness of the morning unnerved him to a point of near-panic, and the mutual friends that he had encountered felt it as well.

“What’s up?” Yamamoto addressed Shoichi, shrugging the baseball gear that hung loosely on his shoulder away from his face. “You look worried.”

_“If you were worried you were being watched, you would be, too!”_

The outburst threatened to escape from Shoichi’s worried state-of-mind, but it faltered and lost its power when he stared at the legitimate concern on the baseball star’s face. The furrowed eyebrows of his added to Shoichi’s confusion as well as Kyoko’s uneasiness. Her posture had morphed from respectful to almost fearful before lowering her gaze to the ground.

“No, I’m okay,” Shoichi mumbled instead, reaching for the doorbell a fifth time. “I just–”

It was then when the labored breathing of someone behind him startled Kyoko, Takeshi, and himself in turn as Hana’s mother, Akahana, bore down on them. Her usually friendly demeanor was nowhere to be seen. Her hair was splayed in all different directions, categorized as a mess on top of her head. The eyes that so often stared happily around at their surroundings now appeared haunted and tired. Even her body language gave off an uncertain vibe as well.

“Is Hana with you?” A quiet whisper came out of her mouth with the question as her dead eyes wandered behind Shoichi and landed on Kyoko. “Did she spend the night over?”

The questions that Akahana asked were almost unanswerable. Shoichi stared at her, awaiting further explanation, but nothing was said.

“No,” Kyoko finally answered, her honey-brown eyes betraying confusion. “I haven’t seen her since school let out yesterday.”

The finality seemed to set itself within Akahana’s state of mind, as she stared accusingly at the three teenagers in front of her. A single breath was almost a queue for the realization to sink over all of the individuals who stood before Akahana and the door.

“Why; where is she?” Kyoko asked, glancing behind Akahana to peer inside of the dark home.

Unfortunately, Shoichi felt as though he already knew the answer, regardless of how much he wanted to believe that it wasn’t true.

_“She’s too reckless for her own good.”_

Hana’s mother only brought her hand to her face before quickly retreating back into the home, closing the door just softly enough that it faded out before her final words echoed into the still, spring morning:

“She’s gone.”

The words shot through Shoichi like a needle penetrating into the skin of a patient. They were the very same words that he knew he would hear, but had elected to ignore the niggling feeling.

_“It’s not like her to disappear. Of all things, she would never just leave without saying goodbye. She’s reckless, but not this reckless.”_

Shoichi’s thoughts faded as Kyoko continually stared at the door, her face scrunching up in disbelief. Takeshi even seemed to sober up as he gently nudged for Kyoko to move away from the door. A sudden somberness settled above the three acquaintances as the daily struggles of life seemed so far away now.

Suddenly, to Shoichi, the thought of going to college was swept out of his mind. His mother was of no concern right now. Nothing even seemed to matter as a bigger, much more pressing thought entered his mind. His breathing went shallow and his chest began to close up as if he was beginning to slowly drown in his own fears.

What if something had _happened_ to Hana?

What if she is lying out there, somewhere cold, in need of assistance?

What if Hana, the best friend that he had ever had in his short eighteen years of living, would never return?

* * *

48 hours.

That was how long he had been running. Running from his nonexistence. Running from his duties. Running from the people who loved him. Running from the people who wanted to use him.

Running.

It was all he knew how to do, and arriving in a brand-new town was nothing short of a deep sigh of relief for the child. He had been running for as long as he could remember; diving into trains unseen because of his age, between people and into the arms of a caring individual, and even dodging the occasional confrontation. After all, he was doing this to protect his family; to keep them out of harm’s way.

The piece of paper that he held in his palm was more or less drenched with sweat, but while frantically checking his short-and-sweet note, it was still legible. His brown hair stuck to his face as he found a soft hill on the outskirts of town, out of sight to anyone who may potentially be following him. After all, he had gotten used to it by now.

The young boy’s note shivered in his hand, and with a deep breath, he watched it go as the soft wind took it out of his hand. It twisted and twirled as it passed the trees and hit miscellaneous branches before it slowly went out of sight. As much as the boy’s brown eyes filled with tears, he had something that he could never let go of: faith that no matter what, that note would reach his parents wherever they were:

_Mom and Pop_

_I have arrived in Namimori and I am searching for a place to live and someone to protect me. Don’t worry. I won’t come back._

_Take care._

_S.C._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> So what was the point of this chapter?
> 
> I dunno, man; I figured that doing a chapter like this would give everyone a break from the main plot and show that the world still turns without the main character around other characters. Also, I’m a huge fan of cameos and I think you guys got a little glimpse of it.
> 
> Yamamoto and Kyoko are still here?!
> 
> Yeah, I planned for them to be in this story more, but somehow that got moved to later… I’m not even sure how, but it happened. Anyway, I’m hoping for them to have a much more significant part in this story without throwing them into it if that makes even a lick of sense.
> 
> What about Tsuna and Reborn and all of the other characters that we love?
> 
> Again, somehow that got moved to much later even though I planned for them to have a bigger part here. I’m not even sure how it happened, guys, but everything that I want to get done doesn’t want to get done. Unless we want 20k-word chapters and a three-month updating schedule. I know I don’t.
> 
> Who was the “Private Number” who texted Shoichi?
> 
> Well, I’m going to let you guys guess in the reviews for this one. I may not be able to reveal this HUGE plot-twist so soon, but I think it’d be cool to see what you guys think. All I can say is that this is huge and that it is not who you think it is. This troupe will be reoccurring as well (or at least, I’m hoping for it… knowing me, I’ll forget about it) so it will only build to the suspense. Trust me; it ain’t obvious.
> 
> S.C.?
> 
> Not an OC. More next chapter, but I think it was a little obvious.
> 
> Author’s Notes:
> 
> Next chapter, we’ll be back to Hana-centric. Fret not!
> 
> I’m still not sure how I feel about the first part of this chapter with Akahana. I wanted it to be longer and in-depth but I didn’t want to spend time on pointless stuff and I can’t decide if it’s rushed or not. I know that that will something that I will come back to and edit.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	11. Peppermint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, drugs, Hana-centric once more, and a lot of Silvano (which is something that everyone needs in their lives).

 

_ Flashback: _

_The young boy's note shivered in his hand, and with a deep breath, he watched it go as the soft wind took it out of his hand. It twisted and twirled as it passed the trees and hit miscellaneous branches before it slowly went out of sight. As much as the boy's brown eyes filled with tears, he had something that he could never let go of: faith that no matter what, that note would reach his parents wherever they were:_

_Mom and Pop_

_I have arrived in Namimori and I am searching for a place to live and someone to protect me. Don't worry. I won't come back._

_Take care._

_S.C._

* * *

Chapter Eleven: Peppermint

_Bulk bicolor Peppermint Carnation flowers are a traditional flower with a ruffled, ball-shaped bloom. The two colors inside of these flowers are traditionally red and white, although multiple hybrids exist. It looks as if it is a peppermint candy._

_ Meaning: _ _warmth of feeling, friendliness, and/or cordiality._

* * *

I stared straight ahead as Silvano began to ask me all sorts of creep-style questions. They came quickly and consistently as soon as I had shaken the dust off of the unused bed in this dark, damp cellar.

Where was I from? Where else?

Did I know anything beforehand? No.

Was I planning to destroy the operation? Not that I know of.

What would I be good at executing illegally? I haven't tried anything illegal, so how the hell would I know?

It had been but a day since I had been forced out of my home to this shady place in which I had journeyed to in the future. I had been given no explanation as to what my purpose was in this whole "operation" that Silvano spoke of and no one had bothered to fill me in on what the hell my father was thinking, either.

Silvano appeared to be interested in every aspect of my life (which included what I had eaten before I was kidnapped), and I had to put a stop to him as he began to fire off on my childhood.

"What makes you so interested in me, anyway? Is there any reason for you to  _know_  any of this stuff?"

Silvano openly pouted. "No, but it ain't gonna hurt to get to know ya… and I ain't wanna spend eons doin' it."

I kept in a well-deserved sigh of exasperation. Silvano wasn't exactly a carbon copy of the man that I had met in the future, but it was obviously him. His annoying nature was enough to let me know that there was no way that it was not the same man I had come to deal with in time. When I had been forcibly settled into my resting place, Silvano had annexed my phone and put it beneath his own pillow for "safekeeping".

"Well, what about you then? Anything I should know about you before I'm expected to room with you and do "illegal business" then?"

Silvano thought hard, allowing his eyebrows to mesh together in careful thought. After a moment, he spoke once more.

"I ain't from here. This business was originally from Italia, but we moved down here years ago. Ya daddy started workin' with us when we moved here."

I felt a draft, however warm it might be, caress my clothes as I held them closer to my body.

"I guess that explains everyone's odd dialect and improper speech patterns, huh? As it sits, what the hell are you in on this for? Did you get forced to run with these criminals, too?"

At the mention of so-called "criminals", Silvano immediately looked hurt.

"Ain't no criminals here. Jus' me, you, momma, 'nd the rest of 'em. They ain't done nothin' wrong; we're jus' tryna make an honest livin' jus' like any other business. They do practically the same stuff as us, but their businesses are considered legal. Ain't no criminals here."

The conviction with which he spoke was almost believable. The tempting prospect that the "drug business", which he had previously told me about, was not at all as illegal as the law made it out to be stuck with me.

"Besides, if it  _was_  so illegal," I accused as I glared at the pillow that rested beneath Silvano's arm as he lounged. "Why'd you take my phone? I already told you that the only reason I brought it with me was just in case I needed help!"

The wooden ceiling creaked with the weight of another individual standing on its opposite end as Silvano searched for an answer with his slyness peeking into our serious conversation.

"Well, I gotta make sure ya ain't call no cops, aight? Ya call the cops, the cops arrest every single one'a us including you, me, and momma. I ain't want nothin' to happen to nobody."

I allowed the silence to consume us as I thought back to my phone. I wondered if anyone noticed that I was missing by now; it had to have been almost twenty-four hours since I had been seen by those who knew me.

_Mom might be flipping out. Shoichi is_ _ definitely _ _flipping out. I can't even imagine what Kyoko would have to say to me at this rate; she's probably in hysterics with the thought of me MIA._

The people that I knew, regardless of what I thought they thought of me, were more than likely beside themselves with worry… especially Shoichi. After all, he was fixing to graduate next week and I had absolutely promised him that I would be there because it would mark the end of a chapter in his life. I  _wanted_  to be there with him that day, but now it looked as if I would never even be able to see him again without my life being in danger.

"Hey, Hana?" As he mentioned my name, Silvano made a distasteful face. "Ya name ain't sound right."

"Huh?"

"It ain't sound right!" He appeared to have jumped from the sensitive subjects to something that didn't even appear to matter. He scratched his chin before allowing a well-meant smile to engulf his features. "Ah, I got it. A nickname, yeah. Imma think of somethin' else, aight? Just let it sit."

I scrambled through my memories to figure out what he meant, but nothing came to mind.

"Anyway," I adjusted myself carefully on the rickety bed that I had claimed to be my own. "Why aren't I allowed to leave? If I hadn't been brought here in the  _first_  place–"

"Nah, ya can't leave. Ya daddy made that decision for ya. Ain't got no choice now."

"Maybe if I had my  _phone_ –"

Silvano shook his head wildly. "Nah! Ain't nobody allowed a personal phone in here."

It was true; the chance that someone could get their personal phone tracked in a situation like this was high. After watching all of those crime shows, you would think that I would have thought of that before having it explained to me. I opened my mouth to say something else, but my phone vibrated beneath Silvano's pillow.

I lunged for it, but I saw nothing but the ground as Silvano pushed me away, carefully inspecting the phone before putting it down.

"Ain't nothin'."

"Don't you tell me it isn't anything!" I rose my voice now, pushing myself to my feet. "Who messaged me?"

When I didn't get an answer, I continued to press. "Who was it?"

All of my frustration was beginning to pour out as the realization sunk in. Whoever it was at the end of the line was worried for me and whoever it was might be someone I'll never be able to see again.

"Nah, it ain't nobody. Says ya battery's low. Ain't gonna lie to ya none."

I reached for the pillow again and I felt around for it before Silvano deflected me again, causing me to land square on my haunches on the cold concrete.

"I'm tellin' ya! Ya ain't wanna look at it. It's only gonna make it harder on ya."

"Give it to me!" I demanded trying my hardest to keep the whine out of my voice. My  _mom_  could be wondering where I was at. "Even if there isn't anything–"

I trailed away as the light from the stairs lit up the whole room, causing my eyes to go out of focus for a moment. I dropped the phone subject immediately as Silvano gave me a strict glance before standing up to greet whoever came down the stairs.

To my surprise, it was my father. Sobered up, he looked like any old, tired man. The dark circles around his eyes betrayed his inner struggles as I stood up to stare at him in the face.

All of the questions I wanted to ask flooded in, but before I could even take a preparatory breath, he stopped in front of the both of us and looked me dead in the face.

"Paulo told me to explain some things to you."

The dark eyes of his that mirrored mine beat down any protests that I had; regardless of the hate that I harbored for him, I would hear him out.

"I'm sure Silvano has already told you this," he cut a glance at the blonde before turning back toward me. "but I am a part of organized crime. You know; like those groups of people that they catch in your crime shows? Your mother told me that that is the only thing you'll watch on TV."

He waited for me to either confirm or deny his statements, but I stayed icily silent.

_Don't say anything._

"Well," Masato continued, looking a bit disgruntled. "I was told to bring my oldest son to our cause, but as you know, you're the only child I have. I thought that it would be easier for you to be with me. My job–our job–has me set for life. You and your mother only get a quarter of the check when I send it. That's how much money I make."

I bit my tongue as my eyes narrowed. I hadn't even  _thought_  about how much money he and everyone who was in on the whole scheme made. That fact was hardly what mattered at the moment anyway: he couldn't be trusted.

"Akahana told me… told me that you were thinking about going into law enforcement, right, Hana?"

I waited until he smiled at me to open my mouth and allow my emotions to take over. "So what? It's not going to happen now. I can't even tell mom I'm leaving. I don't even get a  _choice_  as to what I want to do and where I want to go."

My father appeared wordless as his eyebrows crinkled up. It was almost as if he hardly expected me to blow up. After all, he hadn't known me for very long in the first place, anyway. He hardly knew the first thing about me.

_I don't expect him to want to know, either._

"Besides," I continued, feeling my face heat up as I stumbled over words I wanted to say but never before had the courage to do so. "I haven't meant any-anything to you in a long time and I don't understand why now, of all times, you have to c-come in and ruin my life! Why couldn't you just divorce mom and leave her and I alone?"

My fists balled up when I noticed my father's face go from drained to sharp and angry in an instant as I mentioned divorcing.

"It's none of your goddamn business." He swore at me, and turned around quickly as if he hadn't said anything at all.

I fought to keep my tough demeanor up as he stormed up the stairs and turned out the light, slamming the questionable door and audibly locking it behind him. My eyes began to stung as I held back a well-deserved wail of frustration.

"Ya ain't on good terms, are ya?" Silvano asked quietly, and when I turned back to him, he gingerly held out my phone to me. "I understand now. Just… ain't gotta call no cops, aight?"

I stared at him for a split moment before taking my phone from his hand and wiping my eyes as they began to mist over.

_You can't let him see you cry._

I turned up the brightness of my phone so I could see clearer and I noticed that my battery was ultra-low.

_This might very well be the last time I'll ever be able to speak with anyone that I know._

I took a deep breath and got to work, texting everyone that I knew as Silvano hovered noticeably over my shoulder. I quickly scrolled down to my mother's contact in my list and clicked to send a message, but it was then when I stopped completely.

"What's wrong?" Silvano asked me, but I shut my phone off as I handed back to him without looking at it and knowing what I had done.

"There's nothing I can say. It'll only give them false hope," my voice got higher and higher as I tried my best not to let it crack. "and I can't do that to them."

Silvano was silent as he nodded, understanding. "I guess it'd be best, huh, missy?"

I looked up at him as his eyes lit up at what he'd called me. The memory of him almost never saying my actual name blasted back to me.

"Like that for ya nickname? It kinda just rolls off my tongue, I suppose."

I nodded quietly, suddenly wondering what kind of future I was in for.

_If I was here in the future and I knew Silvano in the future… does that really mean that I will never leave this place? I'll never see my mom again?_

The thought stuck to me like gum on the bottom of a dirty school desk as Silvano jerked me out of my quiet daze.

"I guess I could be the one to tell ya 'bout our organized crime, missy. I ain't think ya dad's gonna tell it the way I gonna."

He sat in front of his bed, on the cold concrete as he stared up at me. I swiped at my eyes and quietly motioned for him to tell me what I was getting into, and he took a deep breath and told me. I even grabbed a pencil that I found and a small scrap of paper so that I would remember in minor detail what I was being told.

* * *

1\. We're not just any organized crime; it's Mafia business. Silvano tells me that women aren't usually part of the Mafia in the first place, and he even says that it's rare for me to even know about it this intimately.

2\. I'm now part of the Todd Famiglia (which apparently means Todd Family) and I am stuck as a lowly drug-runner just like Silvano. Everyone else within the Family (which includes my father, Silvano's mother, and the others) are interested in becoming the top drug-running syndicate in Japan and eventually the world. Few things have seemed to stop them so far.

3\. Our main focus is drug pushing. We get the drugs from elsewhere, but we're the ones in charge of the money and distributing.

4\. The reason that both Silvano and I are here, the reason why these people bring  _kids_  into this, is because they want someone to be able to do this job if something ever happened to them. They knew that consequences were more or less inevitable and so they wanted the business to flourish underneath the hands of children who knew what they were doing.

* * *

I began to tear up as I realized that there was nothing but money involved. Nobody sells drugs for fun. I am only part of a money-hustle. There was little that I could do; I never dreamed on being on  _this_  side of the law. I wanted to be a policewoman or maybe work for the government on top of writing a novel… not sell illegal contraband to any bloke who'd be willing to pay for it.

"Aight, that's the basics there, missy! I ain't know what we're gonna do from 'ere, but I ain't think ya daddy gonna let ya outta this one. Ya know too much now." Silvano gave me a sympathetic glance before standing up to stretch, cracking every little bone and muscle in his back. "Aye, I'm bettin' it's suppertime and I ain't got no supper. Let's go see!"

His pointed change of subject was rather practiced; almost as if he had done the same thing once before, but he reached out and pulled me to my feet. I stumbled over my feet and hurried toward Silvano's retreating back as he raced to the stairs and started yelling in a different language at the locked door.

I turned back before I dodged the doorframe to the stairs to stare at the two beds and the stained curtain that shielded them from the rest of the cellar. It had been home to me for the past two days, sure, but would it be my home forever?

I tried not to dwell on it as thoughts of my mother came to mind, accompanied by Kyoko and Shoichi, reminding myself that this place would never be my home; it would always be them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> This chapter was a little bit on the short side!
> 
> I know… I wanted it to be longer, but I might as well leave all of the cameos and stuff for next chapter.
> 
> Author's Note:
> 
> I couldn't find anything on the Flower of the Chapter this time, so I apologize if you enjoy reading those. This time around was a little… shaky. This whole chapter was shaky and I promise I'll edit it.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	12. Goldenrod

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, drugs, weapons, minor gore, and lots of descriptions this time around.

_ Flashback: _

_I turned back before I dodged the doorframe to the stairs to stare at the two beds and the stained curtain that shielded them from the rest of the cellar. It had been home to me for the past two days, sure, but would it be my home forever?_

_I tried not to dwell on it as thoughts of my mother came to mind, accompanied by Kyoko and Shoichi, reminding myself that this place would never be my home; it would always be them._

* * *

Chapter Twelve: Goldenrod

_The Goldenrod flower has long been scorned (though mistakenly) as the bane of allergy-sufferers, yet people on three continents treat disease with it. It is hardy when grown alongside city asphalt, yet elegant and graceful in the garden._   _Goldenrods owe their weedy reputation to their ruggedness and adaptability. After a forest fire, the appearance of goldenrod plants is often one of the first signs that the woods are coming back to life._

_ Meaning: _ _encouragement, precaution, and/or be cautious._

* * *

It'd been a week since I had gone "missing" to the public. The news talked about me constantly, calling my vanishing act "uncanny" and "tragic". They talked about how my father must be involved in my kidnapping as well, due to the sudden disappearance of my mother's maroon car. Hell, in the newspaper that I had managed to get a hold of, they were even offering a reward for my return… almost as if I was a lost puppy.

Silvano had mostly warmed up to me and I to him respectively, but I still was not quite sure what to think. I had come to find out that the woman that escorted me down to the cellar in the first place was his mother and that she was actually a very nice woman. Similar realizations go for the rest of the Todd Famiglia as well, as I had gotten the chance to meet others that I had previously met for a second time:

There was Rossie. The only way I knew of him was because of how he was the one who had given me the first lesson of organized crime: stay away from the windows. His Mohawk was not something that could be easily missed and I did feel as if he was dependable. Silvano told me that once he got past his near-paranoid outlook on the life of crime, he was known to hatch plans in less time than it took one to finish stretching in a tense moment. He was supposedly smart as well; I had learned that his IQ was among the top one percent in the world.

Besides Rossie, the much more mysterious character in my mind was Enzo. The hair that covered his face was actually never explained to me and I was surprisingly too polite to ask about it. He seemed to handle everything with a cool and calculated attitude, compared to Rossie, who may get out of hand sometimes when nervous. Enzo always seemed to have money on him as well. According to Silvano, he had once challenged the head of the Famiglia, Paulo, for the leadership position, but no one seems to know what came of it. Only that nothing seemed to have changed between the two of them as people and that Paulo had obviously come out on top.

Lastly, there was Paulo. Silvano had told me when I met him for the first time that we all worked under him. Essentially, he was my boss and he took care of everything that went on in our small family. From what I gathered during our official meeting together, he seemed to be an all-around intimidating guy. However, in stark contrast, I could hardly think of him as the head of a crime ring. I overall did not mind him, but I was sure to show him respect due to the fact that my life was in his hands.

The past week hadn't been anything to marvel about, other than the fact that I had started from the bottom rung of the ladder. Silvano was the one to teach me about how everything worked: since Violetta, Silvano's mother, and I were the only women who were even involved, I usually got stuck with the household chores along with her. As shitty and borderline-sexist as it was, I kept my mouth shut because chores weren't illegal… and keeping it shut benefitted me until I heard those special words that day:

"Missy! I got the go; we gonna run some stuff today!" Silvano had come running toward me on the second floor. I had just gotten finished sweeping the hallways and I was taking a short break, donning borrowed clothing from Silvano's mother while mine were in the washing machine. "The boss done set us up for a basic one, but he wants me to take ya along so ya can see how it's done!"

I leaned my broom against the wall, carefully making sure that it wouldn't move, and I let loose:

"You mean I'm going with you to… you know…"

"Deal drugs?" Silvano quickly finished for me, shaking his head good-naturedly. "Ya gonna have to be more comfort'ble with sayin' it if ya want 'em to let ya off the hook from these maid-jobs."

I hadn't  _wanted_  to be comfortable with saying and participating in something completely illegal. If anything, regardless of being an unpaid maid, I was actually semi-glad that I hadn't had to actively participate in anything thus far.

"Isn't that kind of shit dangerous anyway? I mean, I know it's dangerous, but shouldn't we go with someone who has a little more–"

"Experience?" Silvano deadpanned. "That's whatcha want, missy? Well, I see ya ain't know me as well's I previously thought 'nd I'm kinda disappointed. Know how long I been doin' this? I been doin' deals since I've been in the womb, aight? C'mon; some things ya learn by doin' 'em 'nd I ain't gotta choice but to take ya with me."

I let my face revert back to the way it was in the days before I went missing. The unrestrained sass that I chose to give to just about anyone, authority or not, began to flood back into my fingertips… but I held back.

_You have to. If you mouth off, you don't know what could happen to you. Shut up for once in your life._

I looked back at my lonely broom, leaning against the wall, and I finally nodded to Silvano.

"I'll go."

"Ah, c'mon!" Silvano hardly even seemed phased; his loose, blonde hair whipped around and smacked him in the face, but he seemed immune as he hurried to the questionable stairs. "The boss's gonna brief us together 'nd he told me he ain't want us to be late."

I kept up with Silvano as he weaved through the large, older building. I had never taken notice when I had made that one-day trip to the future how large this supposed home truly was. It was on the outskirts of a well-off neighborhood and certainly was one of the larger, much more prided older residences in Namimori.

Finally, we came upon the manicured door of Paulo and I allowed my guard to go up as Silvano politely knocked quietly upon the wood.

"Come in," Paulo's low voice beckoned us. "I have your supplies in here."

I closed the door behind us as we stepped into Paulo's dark office and he rubbed the small stubble on his face before staring up at Silvano.

"The deal is at meeting place four, near the run-down bar, and two guys are going to meet you there."

I watched Silvano pick up a bag on Paulo's desk and begin messing with it.

"Be careful with the bag, boy!" Paulo snapped before returning to his icily-calm demeanor once again as Silvano did as he was asked. "Make sure they give you the right amount of money as well; if so much as one penny is missing from my profit, I'll retaliate by selling your organs off instead."

I shivered when I realized he was absolutely serious, but Silvano hardly seemed fazed. "No problem, boss."

"Oh, and don't forget," Paulo began to speak again once both Silvano and I turned to leave. "Make sure the other one comes back and keep a tight leash on her. Last thing I want is the cops slithering up my ass."

* * *

I waited until Silvano had closed the door to get angry about the way I was seen around here. "Ridiculous! Did my father put him up to that shit?"

"Nah missy," Silvano told me as he led me toward the front of the large home, avoiding certain floorboards so that they would not creak. "He ain't. That's just the boss's way. I ain't know specifically why he asked me to bring ya along because usually he's got the women doin' chores 'nd not puttin' 'em near the illegal stuff."

I fumed at the mention of how little I seemed to matter because of my gender, but I declined to say much else. I accepted (not without a grunt or two) that I was lucky enough to even accompany Silvano on such a potentially-dangerous task.

Silvano's angel-like mother, Violetta, had given me a dark jacket to put on so no one would recognize me before sending us on our way.

"This looks sketchy!" I whispered to Silvano as we made our way on the streets and I put my hood up. "It's the end of March and I'm out in a hoodie!"

"It's only sketchy if ya act like it is, missy," Silvano told me without giving me as much as a glance. "If somebody see ya, they gonna take ya. Not that ya'd mind, but the boss'd skin me if I came back without ya."

I walked with Silvano as quietly as I could, careful not to draw too much attention to myself as we made our way down the near-vacant streets. Silvano occasionally gave me small tips, but they all added up to the same thing:

Don't speak unless spoken to.

"These guys ain't playin', missy," he had told me whilst wiping his long, blonde bangs away from his eyes. "They get ahold of ya, they ain't lettin' go. It ain't supposed to be particularly long, the meeting, but we gotta make sure we ain't get followed and we gotta make sure that they hold up on their side."

We came upon the highway and Silvano made a quick cut right between two buildings, passing a couple of rancid-smelling dumpsters, and advancing toward a well-lit building that sported nothing but loud music that wafted up through the cracks in the doors and windows.

"That's the ole bar, missy. Follow my lead 'nd ya ain't gotta make a sound."

I bit my lip as a retort rose up, but I did as I was told without a complaint.

_It won't help the situation anyway._

As we crept closer to the lit building, I noticed that the glint on the gross ground was shattered glass and it was practically  _everywhere_. I had no doubt that this was the place we were supposed to be.

Silvano suddenly stopped with the bar in view and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Relax. I'll do the talking and ya better make sure ain't nobody look suspicious or they show up with another guy who ain't supposed to be there."

"Wow," I remarked quickly, making sure to keep my voice down. "I've never seen you actually serious before."

"Ya heard the boss, missy!" A quick laugh let me know that he was never actually as serious as I thought he was. "If I ain't do this right, he's killin' me!"

Just as the words came out of his mouth, two men who appeared to have nothing but illegal products on their minds. One of them was a round fellow whose eyebrows creased with the wears of society. The other appeared to be almost paranoid, constantly looking over his shoulder.

"Lookin' for a guy?" Silvano suddenly visibly changed; his back straightened up and the giggly smile on his face faded away into a calculating stare. "Ya got the money?"

"You got the stuff, Cheshire?" After Silvano gave a nod to the front man who had spoken, the man appeared to lose his calm composure. "I ain't got time for this, kid. Hand over the stuff and I'll hand over the money."

_Cheshire? Why the hell does he get called that, anyway?_

Silvano gave a small laugh as I stepped back when he stepped forward. "The money always comes first… ya should know that one by now."

_Maybe he ISN'T an idiot. Maybe it's all just a simple front. That's actually terrifying!_

The front man looked from Silvano to me and back to Silvano within the time it takes to take a quick breath.

"Whose this?" He asked, eyeing me once more. The stare he gave me wasn't caution; it was more of hunger… and not the type of hunger when you are hungry for food.

Silvano shrugged and declined to turn back to me. "Ya want the stuff or not?"

It was then when the nervous man behind the other man twitched, and I twitched in response. I thought it was a friendly gesture and when the man stared back at me with confusion on his face, I had to double-take. After all, I had always seen these deals from the law's point of view.

_I know nothing! What did Silvano expect me to do; get out here and be able to do whatever the hell he's doing right now?_

My nerves were beginning to show; I let my leg start shaking it off and my mouth began to get noticeably dry as the two prospective buyers stared Silvano and I down. Silvano, throughout all this, was as calm as I would be in my own home.

"Yeah, yeah we've got the money. You wanted a thousand, right?"

"Tack on another ten 'nd we'll be aight… aye, can't ya take a joke?"

I straightened up as the eyes of the negotiating man glanced over me, but Silvano shrugged and finally relented from his tense posture when the man reached into his pocket. I prepared for the worst, allowing my muscles to tighten, but I relaxed when he pulled out a couple of wads of cash.

Silvano handed it to me as he received it and quietly told me to count to a thousand.

So I did.

I sat there for what must have been pushing five minutes and made sure that every cent was accounted for… not for me, but for Silvano himself. After all, Paulo did say that if anything was out of line, the blonde could possibly be hacked off.

"It's all there," I nodded at the money in my hands as Silvano reached into his own jacket pocket for the substance that he possessed before carefully handing it over.

My brown hair twitched uncomfortably in the light spring wind before Silvano finally allowed us and the two other men to go our separate ways. Silvano lingered for a moment to make sure that the men were out of sight and that there wasn't anything lurking around to surprise us on our way out, but he finally conceded to leave the ominous and disgusting rendezvous point.

"That was wrong," I automatically spoke as we rounded the corner, my muscles relaxing for the first time since we had been out. "I can't believe you sold that to those people!"

"Ya my momma now? Nah wait," Silvano paused, holding in a well-deserved laugh. "My momma taught me how to deal in the first place! So ya ain't nothin' but a sissy. Ya gotta get used to it, missy. Ain't nothin' after a while; ain't forcin' them to take nothin'."

I took a breath to argue, but I stopped and thought it through. He was completely correct in the sense that there was nothing truly  _making_  anyone buy the substances that Paulo provided.

_Just like how there's nothing that's truly making me stay here with these people… other than the thought of being gunned down at the prospect of leaving or even asking about it…_

_"Anyway,"_ I casually changed the subject to an odd instance that I noticed earlier. "Why did that one guy call you that name? Cheshire?"

"Ain't ya ever heard of a street name, missy?" Silvano laughed. "That'd be mine. Aye, I got it when I scared the livin' hell outta a couple'a guys way back when. Been known as Cheshire ever since!"

_But didn't the Cheshire cat from that fairy tale turn invisible and have a creepy smile?_

I glanced back at my partner-in-crime and I saw that creepy smile become a reality... but the invisibility part seemed oddly familiar and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something as we continued to walk our way out of the alleyway.

"Aight, we'd better get outta here," Silvano spoke up once more, sounding serious once again. "Gotta be people crawlin' all over the place, waitin' for us to let our guard down… at least, that's what we gotta prepare for. C'mon; we're taking the long way back."

_You're running with a band of lowly criminals, Hana, and you know it._

I told myself that same thought over and over again until it practically scarred my nightmares with the hellish thoughts of how my moral compass was becoming horrifically misled by the day. Though, their reasoning to defend their "criminal status" was so convincing that even I could believe it, despite being labeled as "the skeptic".

"Aight, hold onto that cash ya got close, too; ain't wanna see Paulo's face if even a cent's outta line… not that I'll be able to after he shoots me point blank, ha!"

In spite of Silvano's morbid humor, I laughed along with him. Regrettably, it seemed that the way these criminals operated was beginning to grow onto me and indeed, and thoughts of home had begun to get hazy and the worries of the previous, moral Hana Kurokawa vanished with every stack of cash that I knew I would get to hold.

This is the power that I have been looking for.

* * *

"…And you'll be taking all of your things with you, Shoichi," a brown-haired, middle-aged woman remarked matter-of-factly. "I do not want to be responsible for moving your luggage around my house once I get the opportunity to move out after you move onto college."

Shoichi stared at his mother with exasperation today; it had been a solid seven days since he learned that Hana had gone missing. It'd affected him much more than he cared to admit. She hadn't attended his graduation like the both of them had planned, leaving him in a nervous wreck, anxiously waiting to watch her come in late or something as if there was still hope for her survival. Since the day she had gone missing and after the ominous text message that he had been sent predicting this massive tragedy, Shoichi had gone over to the Kurokawa household to console his best friend's mother nearly every day and cooperating with the authorities in hopes of her safe return.

"Sure, mom." He sighed, anxiously groping for his phone in his pocket, which had not vibrated with a text message since the warning text that had sent his head reeling. "I'm going to go out for a while."

Without waiting for an answer, Shoichi gathered up a light jacket and slipped on his shoes before closing the door to his apartment. He approached the elevator and stared at the lobby button, waiting for his best friend to press it like she always did, even if she wasn't there. Finally giving up waiting, he pushed the button as the elevator slunk down five floors before hitting the bottom without stopping for anyone else to get on, and he made his way onto the busy street.

Being out of school had its perks; no more classes and no more studying, but without Hana, it was odd. It wasn't as if he didn't have any other friends at his own school. However, Shoichi never hung out with them outside of school to begin with. Mostly everyone he knew was busy; preparing for college or just plain enjoying their term ending.

Beginning his usual route, Shoichi took a deep breath and headed toward Hana's neighborhood. It was not a choice in the slightest; more of an instinct or an internal thought that took over while he was distracted.

" _I don't even know what's wrong with me. I know that Hana is fine. There is no way she'd let herself get injured. It's not in her. She's reckless, but not THAT reckless. She's not stupid."_

The faint buzzing of his phone caused Shoichi to stop in his tracks and scroll to his messages quicker than he could have told a passing newbie the quadratic formula.

_Private Number_

_12:24 PM_

_Look to your right._

Shoichi stopped to stare and reread the message over and over again, checking the private number stats over and over again to make sense of it before freezing and looking up slowly.

" _That's creepy as hell!"_

A scuffling noise distracted Shoichi immediately to his right and he neglected to look, knowing that looking might possibly be the worst thing to do, knowing that looking could potentially seal the deal in terms of his life ending.

" _I'm not going to look! I'm going to turn around and walk away and text this number before this creepiness gets out of hand!"_

Shoichi shut his eyes tightly before finally opening his eyes as his right sleeve tugged in that direction, causing him to naturally pull away and step backward.

"W-what are you do-?" Shoichi stared to speak, but he stopped when his eyes landed onto the individual who had pulled on the fabric of his clothing. The brown hair and brown eyes that stared up at him from the height of a preteen child, with hope in his pupils and a smile on a soft face only caused Shoichi to crinkle his eyebrows in confusion. "Do you n-need something?"

The quiet boy stared up at him with a smile before finally relenting and lowering his head as other pedestrians hurried by Shoichi and the boy by his side.

"A home."

"I'm sure you can find a home somewhere else-" Shoichi nervously pulled away, only to have the boy follow him the short distance that he crossed in an attempt to get away from him.

"No, it must be with you! After all," the bright eyes that he possessed did not seem to dim as his smile brightened. "You're Irie Shoichi! The stars have shown me who you are!"

" _Stars? This kid's nuts!"_

"How do you know my name?" Shoichi tensed, waiting for his cellphone to ring once again with a helpful hint, but it stayed eerily still as the boy tilted his head, appearing puzzled.

"I know that my home is supposed to be with you! Can you?"

Shoichi let the word "no" rest on his tongue before ultimately noticing the young boy's unflinching stare. It was not necessarily a terrifying stare as he had come to expect, but more of a pleading one.

"…I'll take you to my house, but only if you promise to tell me who you are and how to find your parents, okay?"

The boy frowned for a moment, but nodded regardless, stepping from one foot to the other in excitement.

"Okay! I don't know how to find my parents because they are always with me," the boy started, but his eyes betrayed nothing but utter conviction as Shoichi truly met them for the first time. "but my name is Fuuta and I am sure that my home is with you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> What? You're adding in more under-appreciated characters into your story?
> 
> Why, of course. We can't have the whole fandom hyped up on Hibari, can we? Nah; I just enjoy getting to expand on characters that no one else seems to ever add into their stories because I can create the fandom troupe for them instead of going off of and modifying what everyone else thinks their character is.
> 
> Fuuta's personality?
> 
> I'm experimenting. Obviously character development has to come in sometime, so expect that soon, but I have big plans for his character. As of now, he seems to be a dependent child who only wants "a home". I'll let you all ponder on that and guess what I mean.
> 
> What's with all of the Shoichi in this story? Yeesh!
> 
> I like his character and he's important. You think you're seeing enough now? He only appears more in later chapters.
> 
> What's up with Hana at the end of her segment?
> 
> Remember how earlier (before the kidnapping) she talked about looking to seize power because… well, Byakuran told her to? Looks like she's thinking about the levels of different kinds of power here as well as what kind of power she wants to possess.
> 
> Author's Note:
> 
> I'm gonna have to apologize for this chapter. It was a little bit rough around the edges (and bland as hell), but it was necessary, so I cranked it out.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	13. Flax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, a long chapter, bonding, and some ominous stuff put into play by the hand of yours truly.

_ Flashback: _

_“…I’ll take my house, but only if you promise to tell me who you are and how to find your parents, okay?”_

_The boy frowned for a moment, but nodded regardless, stepping from one foot to the other in excitement._

_“Okay! I don’t know how to find my parents because they are always with me,” the boy started, but his eyes betrayed nothing but utter conviction as Shoichi truly met them for the first time. “but my name is Fuuta and I am sure that my home is with you!”_

* * *

Chapter Thirteen: Flax

_Many people merely think of the flax flower in its seed form because of its medicinal use as a laxative. In its seed form, flax is known to have a ton of fiber stored within it. It is also used in the making of some fabrics. Flax has five petals and is mainly seen in a blue-ish hue._

_ Meaning: _ _fate, domestic life, and/or family._

* * *

“Are you going to take me to our home, Shoichi-nii?”

The strange child, who had previously identified himself as Fuuta, stared up at Shoichi expectantly. Regardless of the weather, the heavy winter coat that the child donned was an indication that he was not familiar with the climate of Namimori in the slightest. Against his better judgment, Shoichi had decided to bring him to see his apartment… but what was with the “big bro” formality?

“To my apartment, yes… and could you stop with the “big bro” façade?”

Fuuta only frowned and did not answer as they crossed the street together.

_“He’s weird!”_ Shoichi told himself as the frown suddenly disappeared from Fuuta’s features and he gave Shoichi a smile. _“How is he supposed to know who I am?”_

It wasn’t as if he was famous; no one knew his name. Some of his classmates occasionally had to ask for it when they worked with him or wanted to ask him a question. Having some random young boy know who he is _and_ want to hang around him? That was borderline a miracle.

_“The hell is my mom going to think?”_

Fuuta jumped around excitably as the surroundings closed into the large apartment building that Shoichi had only just left that morning. His mother was in there, sorting through things and making sure that he was on his way out, unfortunately without giving a care about how he had been feeling for the past week.

“Do you have a family, Shoichi-nii?”

Shoichi’s head snapped up at the sudden question. Of _course_ he had a family. What was with the sudden question?

“Yeah, I do… my mom and I are a family.”

_“I hope he’s not thinking about the standard family… because my father and my sister aren’t considered my family. Not after ten years.”_

Fuuta’s brown eyes twinkled knowingly before rushing up to the automatic doors that opened to the lobby of the apartment complex. The large coat that the small child donned seemed out-of-proportion; the weather was getting nicer by the day, and it definitely was not coat weather.

_“He had better get done with what he needs to get done and leave! My mom’s going to kill me for bringing a little kid into the house!”_

* * *

Shoichi’s mother stood there, arms crossed, staring down at Fuuta with a furrowed brow. Her nose crinkled only slightly as Fuuta smiled up at her with his pudgy little face.

“Shoichi, what is the meaning of this?”

The disgust in her voice was enough to make even a snake flinch away from the hardened anger implied through words alone. However, Fuuta seemed to take little to no notice.

“I’m home, mom!”

Shoichi felt his world spin for a swift moment. _Mom?_ Did this child just call _his_ , Shoichi’s mother, _mom?_

_“No! This is going downhill so fast…”_

Even Shoichi’s mother seemed to catch it, her brow furrowing to the point in which her skin folded in an unsightly manner. It was with a great sigh that Shoichi’s mother’s deep brown eyes softened and finally she turned to Shoichi.

“Who is your friend?”

Shoichi took a large gulp before speaking, allowing himself little time to think over what he might say.

“He-he’s not–”

“Shoichi-nii is my brother!”

Shoichi’s mother hardly even waited a moment to beck her son over to the kitchen.

“We need to talk.”

* * *

“Listen, mom; he–I don’t know where he came from!” Shoichi managed to get it off his chest. After all, it wasn’t his fault that the child had come out of absolute thin air. “He came up to me and started calling me his brother and everything and–”

“Then why would possess you to take him back here?”

The fury that seared his mother’s tongue had Shoichi worried. While she was typically an angry woman in general (which made her job in construction easier because people respected her), he hadn’t expected to make her furious just yet.

_“What if I can’t get rid of the weird kid? What if I’m stuck with him?”_

“I–I can take care of it, mom. Let’s just have him stay for–for one night and then…”

“Make sure that he does,” Shoichi’s mother snapped at him as she stormed out of the kitchen and started past Fuuta and toward the door.

_“What is her deal?”_

Shoichi listened to the door slam and followed the aftermath at a slow pace, stopping just before Fuuta himself.

“You can stay for _one_ day. _One_. After that–”

“Okay!” Fuuta beamed at Shoichi with nothing but happiness on his face.

Ignoring how he had been interrupted by everyone who had spoken to him, Shoichi stared at the child with confusion on his face.

_“I don’t understand why he’s so weird! I mean, sure, it’d be weird enough if he had just randomly come up to me, but it’s even worse because of that–”_

That weird text!

_“Every single time I get one of those, something freaking weird happens!”_

Fuuta stared up at him for only a moment before running toward the stairs.

“Let’s go see your room!”

* * *

Shoichi opened the door to his messy room; the bed had not yet been made and clean clothes sprawled across the floor.

“Is this your room?”

Fuuta had already taken a liking to Shoichi’s unmade bed and stood straight up on it before lying down and rolling around as if the bed was his own.

“Yeah, it is,” Shoichi attempted to keep his cool. “You can only stay here for a day, okay?”

The brown-haired child only seemed to hear what he wanted to hear as he suddenly rolled off of the bed and approached Shoichi’s computer.

“You have a computer?”

The obvious surprise in Fuuta’s voice took Shoichi aback, but he managed to keep his own surprise under control:

“Yeah, I do.”

Beside the computer, a picture sat atop of the desk. Miscellaneous papers splayed across the desk in such a messy fashion that Shoichi had forgotten it was there until Fuuta picked it up and inspected it.

“What’s this?”

Shoichi approached the kid, wondering what the picture might be of as well, until he remembered _that one time_ –

“Oh that? Yeah, me and–”

“Is this your sister?” Fuuta asked nosily, pointing to Hana’s angry face in the picture.

Shoichi denied that thought as quickly as he could, shooting into a memorable story that he remembered like it was yesterday:

“No, she’s not! If anything, we’re just friends… but we took that picture a couple of months ago… it was snowing outside and we went to the movies but these kids kept talking and Hana was pretty angry… when I suggested to take a picture by the theatre, she agreed but when we got one of the employees 6to take the picture, the kids ran by and called her a name, so she ran after them.”

Fuuta stared at the picture for only a couple of moments longer before putting it back where it belonged.

“Can I meet her?”

It felt like a jab in the stomach when Shoichi remembered. Fuuta had merely distracted him from the reality that Hana was not here. No one knew where she was.

“She isn’t… she’s missing.”

The words were almost too painful to get out of his mouth, but they managed as if the universe did not even feel his suffering. Fuuta hardly seemed to pick up on Shoichi’s silent pain as the kid smiled.

“Are you sure?”

Before Shoichi could even answer, Fuuta ran from the room, giggling a great deal, and Shoichi stared after him.

_“What the hell does he know?”_

* * *

I stared at the bedframe as Silvano turned off the lights in the dark and surprisingly-damp basement. The day had been long and grueling and I hadn’t had time to myself until just now. My pillow smelled of lavender as I buried my face into it now, begging myself to fall asleep, but it was almost as if I still had six hours left in the day to get through. Sleep would not come to me no matter how hard I tried.

_I don’t know how to act anymore. My friends think I’m dead. My mom thinks I’m dead. I’m aiding a band of criminals in whatever they wish for me to do. My dad’s an asshole. I’ll never go to college. I’ll never write a book._

It was a long moment before I realized that my lavender-scented pillow was now damp, and my own face had become damper still.

_Crying won’t get my life back on track, but somehow it feels like I’m letting stress out. Like it’s all rolling off of my shoulders._

With that, I allowed myself to cry, making sure to breathe as quietly as I could, but even that did not seem like enough.

“Missy, why’re ya cryin’?”

Silvano’s muffled voice stopped my heart; the only reason it resumed was because it was not ready to stay silent. I quickly rose my hands to my face and wiped it, trying to keep my breathing steady once more.

“I’m not.”

My voice wavered and I could hear Silvano snicker softly as he got up from his own bed, standing rather close to the edge of my bed as I curled my chin into my body, shying away from him.

“C’mon, ain’t gotta lie to me; what’s with the sad water?”

I couldn’t resist a cold-hearted laugh at the ridiculous statement. “Sad water? As if water has feelings!”

“Yeah, but missy, _ya_ do. Now, ain’t ya gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

I nearly allowed myself to get out of hand with the sarcasm that I desperately wanted to dish out, but there was nothing that I could say. I didn’t want Silvano to know how upset I was at the prospect of existing for our boss’s needs, and I definitely didn’t want him to know that even though I wanted to grasp power, I didn’t want it to be _this_ kind of power.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I covered for myself, breathing in deeply. “I’m just tired.”

Subconsciously, I had just used the same excuse that I always used with my mom whenever I didn’t want to talk. It brought back a wave of feeling, and I sighed, exhaling the thoughts along with my breath.

“Nah, missy. Ain’t gotta lie to me. Just wanna know why; ain’t nothin’ much… I mean, I know it ain’t easy havin’ to get taken away from ya momma to come here ‘nd all ‘nd I ain’t know what else to tell ya ‘bout it ‘cause I ain’t know what to do. Can’t help ya.”

I declined to answer as Silvano allowed a sigh to escape his lips and the other bed creaked as he must have sat down on it. The tightness in my chest only seemed to clench tighter as I attempted to stop. Showing this kind of weakness only made me feel smaller and much less like someone who deserved to succeed or seize power like I dreamt I could.

_I can’t accomplish anything. I’ll always be stuck in this cellar forever, with nothing to show for it. I can’t even make an honest living. I’m stuck here. I’ll always be stuck here._

“I ain’t know what I’m s’posed to do,” Silvano’s voice had lowered from its usual laughter into a hushed sigh. “I ain’t know how to make ya feel better. Ain’t there somethin’ that’ll make ya happy or somethin’? There’s gotta be somethin’, missy. Gotta be somethin’.”

I waited for him to say something else, but only silence followed his small rant. My breathing began to steady as I thought ahead. What could be done about my situation that would not compromise the criminals that provided for me here?

_I can’t think of much. I don’t know what to do. There isn’t anyone to turn to. I can’t leave or run away._

I sat up straight, stretching from my comfortable position as I whipped my head to Silvano.

“I’m going to go see my mom,” I exclaimed without even letting my brain buffer or filter what I said. “I have to let her know I’m okay!”

Silvano reached for the flashlight beneath his pillow and it shone in my face, prompting me to look away.

“Missy, ya gotta be crazy. Ain’t sensible or smart, neither.”

I was beginning to get desperate now as I anxiously pulled on my long locks of hair. “No, I have to! I’m not going to give us away or anything–”

“Nah, missy,” Silvano used his flashlight to shine it upon the top of the ceiling, twirling it in interesting directions. “Ain’t say I wasn’t gonna let ya. Just said it ain’t smart. I ain’t wanna get our cover blown or nothin’, but I ain’t even know how it’d feel to be ripped away from ya family like that… so I ain’t gonna sit by and let ya stumble ‘round in the dark or nothin’. I’ll be comin’ ‘long to make sure ya ain’t tryna snitch.”

I stared ahead, into the darkness of the rest of the room. Little did I know that I would even be allowed out at all; let alone to go see my mother. I had thought I would have to sneak away, unannounced and unseen to be able to so much as walk by my own house. I had even loosely prepared for it, even if I had no idea how to get back to my house or which direction it was in.

“Aight?” Silvano pressed, and I muttered an agreement to him as I surprisingly sat up and wiped my tears away.

“Aight then,” Silvano resolved and gripped his flashlight with the utmost certainty before switching it off. “Let’s go; sooner out, sooner back.”

I waited until Silvano had stepped away from the two beds toward the stairs to follow his lead, and as he climbed up the stairs, I began to feel myself getting emotional once again.

_He didn’t have to do it. He has to be risking his own status to go with me to do something so clearly out-of-the-question. Paulo wouldn’t allow anything like this… no one would._

Silvano pulled down on the old-style light switch to illuminate the stairs and that’s when he glanced back at me as he laid his hand atop of the door handle.

“Ain’t gotta get emotional with me, missy. Woulda done the same for anybody else, yeah.”

I opened my mouth, attempting to form together sentences that I couldn’t even comprehend as the pressure weighed down on me.

“Thank you,” I finally managed to say, my eyes once again misting over. “Thank you.”

I’m unsure what kind of response I got back, but I could have sworn I heard him faintly laugh before opening the door and waiting for me to emerge from the cellar. As I emerged from the stairs and the heavy door shut behind me, I quickly wiped my stray tears into my skin.

Silvano searched the vicinity, but as he determined that the coast was clear of any close-by individuals, he turned his gaze to me.

“Gotta play it cool, missy. I wanna be there ‘nd back in no time, yeah.”

I nodded in response to that; it was an easy term to agree to.

“Do you think that you’ll be able to find my house in the first place?”

Silvano creased his eyebrows in confusion, but slowly smiled in my general direction as footsteps began to get louder from a distant hallway.

“Gonna worry ‘bout that if they lemme take the car in the first place, missy.”

_Take the car?_

I was puzzled for a slight moment; as a near-seventeen year old girl, my mother had always dreamt of teaching me how to drive a car. I had always wanted to learn. However, ever since my parent’s marriage had headed to the dumps over the past couple of years, she hasn’t been too keen on teaching me without my father and because of that, I hadn’t been too keen on learning.

_I guess, since he’s older than me and OBVIOUSLY much more experienced in pretty much everything, it isn’t exactly a shocker to learn that he’s legal behind the wheel. Hey; at least he’s legal at SOMETHING._

Silvano had strutted out into the open as my thoughts ran their course, and justly, Enzo decided to finally appear. I couldn’t read the look on his face (after all, his face is always covered with his hair) and I waited for him to say something as Silvano politely acknowledged his presence.

“Enzo, just the man I wanted to see! Listen, Imma have to borrow the car for a bit. Gotta take care of some stuff.”

_Could he be any more obvious?_

I bit my lip in a short-lived panic; if Enzo questioned us, it would be all over. We hadn’t practiced or gone over anything in particular to cover our asses. If our stories didn’t match up, just like in my crime shows, we’d be busted.

To my surprise, Enzo appeared to smile from behind his sea of hair.

“You may borrow the car. You’re one of the best drivers we have, and I’m sure that the “stuff” you alluded to is nothing short of business-related. Take the newbie with you. I’m sure she’ll need to witness any transactions you have to make.”

I stood there, slack-jawed at Enzo’s sudden change in demeanor. This man was pretty high up on my personal scale of intimidation, and he terrified me almost as bad as Paulo himself did… but I had never seen him act friendly before.

_Unless something’s up._

The brief thought brought a chill upon the springy air inside of this place that I now designated as “home”. There was no reason for Enzo, one of the richest and most business-minded people in this whole operation, to _not_ suspect us for both happening to be at the same place, at the same time, looking to borrow the car so late at night… not with potentially thousands or even hundreds of thousands at risk.

I glanced worriedly at Silvano, allowing my mask to slip for a moment, but Silvano hardly skipped a beat.

“Aight, thanks Enzo. Key’s in the same place as always?”

Enzo managed a curt nod now, his body language looking skeptical now. I pondered on this for a moment before he noticeably turned his head toward me with a much stricter tone in his voice.

“Make sure to do everything that this guy says, regardless of if it’s dangerous or not. If I find out you’ve been disobeying orders, I’ll have you on lockdown again.”

I returned his rather-stoic nod before allowing him to go on his way, pushing past me as if I was nothing more than a stranger who was in his way. Silvano turned to me and motioned to me as he headed toward the front door, but he took a quick right into an adjacent room full of windows.

Before I could follow him in, he had already stepped right back out into the open as he laid his hand on the door with the car keys in his hand.

“Where’d you–?” I started, but Silvano quickly hushed me quiet before glancing around and leaning down to my ear. “Imma talk more once we’re outta earshot.”

Silvano finally opened the door and shoved me behind him, turning his head left and then right in a slow succession before grabbing my arm rather forcefully and dragging me out of the large home and into the driveway before shoving me in-between the two cars that were parked there. Oddly enough, they were both parked facing away from the house, but I quickly determined that that was probably to prevent people from seeing license plate numbers without a little effort. With a small squeal, I fell onto my knees and swore immediately.

“The hell’d you do that shit for? I’m probably bleeding–”

“Missy, did ya notice anything?” Silvano demanded, crouching down beside me between the two cars. “Anything ‘bout how ole Enzo was actin’ back there?”

He paused to let me answer, but I hadn’t prepared anything to say other than the obvious:

“Nothing… except how he was nice to you.”

Silvano visibly cringed and I watched him stare at me wildly.

“That right there’s the problem, missy. In all these years that I’ve known ‘em, he ain’t never said a nice word to me that ain’t got somethin’ behind it. Rossie’s smart, ya seen it, he’s genius. Enzo’s a different kinda smart, missy. He ain’t mess around ever. He ain’t bein’ nice. There’s somethin’ wrong. I ain’t put my finger on it…”

I felt uneasiness creep over me as Silvano voiced out my very fears.

_So it’s true. There really isn’t a reason why Enzo would be unexplainably nice unless he had something to gain from it._

Silvano glanced at the car and then back to the direction of the door before lightly pinching me.

“Ya ain’t think he’s wired, do ya? Think he wired the car?”

I frowned in suspicion; it could very well be true. The amount of money one can earn from cooperating with the police is actually quite substantial… and knowing Enzo to be a man who had riches spilling out of his already-lined pockets, I couldn’t think of a reason why he _shouldn’t_ cooperate with the police.

“I-I dunno… I don’t think so…”

_Other than loyalty… but in the Mafia, can you really be loyal to anyone except for yourself?_

The deep question threw me for a loop, but I shook it out of my head as Silvano took a breath before nudging me softly.

“Aight, I ain’t care. We’re gonna get ya to ya momma’s place no matter what, yeah.”

I admired his courage, I’ll admit, because of how willing he was to potentially be arrested. With all of the crimes that he had possibly participated in, personally, I wouldn’t help someone even if they had paid me.

Silvano stood up and unlocked the car that we were going to ride in. After that, his hand swung down and I grabbed it, helping myself onto my feet. With that, he opened the door for me and when I stared at him quizzically, he seemed to stare right back in the same manner.

“Ain’t ya wanna go?”

“Well, yeah,” I answered, staring into the dimly-lit car. The light had popped on, but it was hardly enough to make a difference because it was still quite dark.

“Then ain’t ya gotta get into the car ‘fore ya go with me? Ain’t that why we got the car keys?”

I stared into the car and stepped away, allowing my pride to take over once again.

“I’m not getting in unless I can help myself in; you helped me up, so I’m going to let myself into the car. Close the door.”

Silvano, however, refused to budge from his spot with nothing but a ridiculous smile on his face. “Nah, missy! My momma taught me to open the door for those that I’m drivin’ around, not just ladies! C’mon!”

All thoughts of the possible wiring removed themselves from my mind in an instant. I used as much strength as I could muster up (with the help of a little fury as well) to push the door shut, regardless of Silvano’s grip on it.

“What’d ya go an’ do that for, missy? I’m just tryna–”

I didn’t even wait for him to finish whatever he was saying as I reopened the car door for myself and sat down, closing it before Silvano could get to it. I grinned for a moment when Silvano sighed rather loudly before making his way around the car to sit down beside me in the driver’s seat.

“Ain’t nobody ever tell ya how stubborn ya are, missy?”

Silvano smiled, but I noticed that the smile he gave me turned slowly into a frown when I hurriedly looked away outside, observing him from the outside windows.

I hadn’t even thought about Shoichi until Silvano had said what Shoichi told me frequently; that I was stubborn. Nowadays, I didn’t even have time to think about him. If anything, he was probably mad that I’d missed out on his graduation. I mean, at least he wouldn’t have to get me a birthday present anymore, right?

“I’m sorry, missy,” Silvano quickly apologized to me, and before I could ask what for, he pulled my arm gently toward him to face him. “I ain’t mean to say nothin’ mean.”

“No, no,” I quickly hushed him as I attempted to push the thought of my previous life out of my mind. “You just reminded me of a friend of mine… he always used to call me stubborn, that’s all.”

I could tell that Silvano wanted to ask me about it, but he slowly put the keys in the ignition and fired up the engine before gunning it out of the driveway. My head flung backward, but I managed to keep my calm as Silvano glanced at me.

“Aight, where’s it at?”

* * *

It took us at least twenty minutes to drive back to my home (because, of course, I had no idea what part of town we were in!) which made everything much more complicated. To be truthful, I don’t think I could replicate the drive and return to my house because not only did we do it in the dark, but we took so many wrong turns that we must have gone in a multitude of circles before finding where we were going.

The car smelled of nothing but cigarettes and I had occasionally rolled down the windows to get some fresh air in (as Silvano yelled at me to put it back up just in case anyone noticed us), and I was in the middle of a scolding when we rolled up to my house. It was no different than when I left it, and I took a deep breath when I spotted the familiar aspects of it that I had once taken for granted.

The trees outside were more-or-less the same; I hadn’t been gone long enough for them to noticeably change. The front of the home looked pristine… maybe even cleaner than it was before I had left it. The only thing that was unfamiliar to me was the absence of the disgusting maroon car that my mother had once owned, stolen by my father and decimated by the other members of the Todd Famiglia.

“Aight, missy, this the place?”

Silvano turned off the car immediately as we rolled up, hushing his voice down as the lights inside of the car faded to black.

“Yeah, this is it,” I muttered, letting my words hang in the chilly air. I had forgotten to roll up the window and I made sure to be quiet as Silvano shuffled around, completely covering up my attempts to be quiet. “Stop moving! Someone will hear us!”

“I’m tryna get my seatbelt off! Jeez, what else ya want from me? We’re gonna go up in there like ya wanted, right?”

I paused as his words hung in the air just as mine had before. The best I had expected to do was be able to come by and stare at my house, not go inside and become a trespasser in the home I used to live in.

“What the hell are you talking about?” My voice rose full octave. “We’re going to get–”

The word _“seen_ ” stuck in my throat as I thought back to my time in the future. Silvano was our ace in the future. He was the reason why so many of our stealthy missions had gone so well, according to future-Shoichi. He possessed something that no one else I had ever known (or anyone in general) had; the power to harness temporary invisibility.

“Caught or somethin’?” Silvano laughed, lowering his voice as a distant yelp of a dog pierced through the tension. “Yeah, I thought as much! Thought that’s why ya oughtta have brought me rather than anybody else, considerin’ they’d be willin’ to follow ya on somethin’ so harebrained. Aye, ain’t nobody gonna see a thing with me on ya side.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing as he gently opened the car door and the lights popped on, temporarily blinding me, but I quickly followed suit. I slunk toward Silvano as he edged away from the nearby streetlight, the light putting emphasis on his blonde hair.

“Aight, missy. Gotta show ya somethin’ real cool. Ya wanna go to ya old room or somethin’?”

_I wish I could tell him that I knew about this already…_

I knew I couldn’t, though, no matter what. I had elected long ago that telling people about what I had seen in the future could potentially lead to disaster. I couldn’t mess with the strange entity that time is considered any more than I already had… yet, keeping these locked up secrets was much more difficult than it seemed. First, it was Shoichi who always pried the memories out from the depths of my mind with small, simple things. Now, it was Silvano with his huge reveal that I already knew about.

“Yeah,” I panted as Silvano and I approached the bushes in front of my home. “I would love to see my own room again.”

_I would love to sleep in that bed and forget that all of this ever happened._

I crouched uncomfortably near the bushes and I was careful to move slowly. While not very many cars passed by my home on a daily basis (much less a nightly one), it was still nerve-wracking. The second rule of the business, as Rossie had elected to teach me in one sitting, always was “know where the cops are at all times”. In the dark, that task became simply _that_ much harder.

“Aight, missy. See ya window right through the bushes? Aye, we gonna go inside ‘nd all ya gotta do is trust me.”

My eyebrows furrowed, but I forced myself to say nothing as Silvano quickly stood and grabbed a hold on my upper right arm before approaching the window. The leaves on the bushes tickled my legs and ankles, occasionally scratching the top layer of my skin as Silvano quickly reached into his back pocket and pulled something out, pulling on my window now.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I squinted in the dark, trying to get a better handle for what exactly he was holding in his hand, and Silvano hushed me with a simple whisper.

“Ain’t tryna break the window or nothin’, just wanna unlock it ‘nd get in. I always gotta bring something strong with me to do so.”

_He doesn’t have to do all of this for me. He’s risking everything just on my simple, homesick feelings._

Silvano gasped as a loud _clang_ sent a spike through the air, scaring me. He lifted the window up, now holding one hand out to me.

“C’mon, just gotta trust me. Ain’t nobody gonna see us do nothin’, missy.”

I took a glance inside of my dark home; it was even darker than the natural darkness of the outside world. I couldn’t spot any familiar landmarks or items, but I knew that the nostalgia was waiting for me at the end of this narrow, scary tunnel. I did as I was told, allowing Silvano to have my hand.

Silvano had already made his way through the window, cleverly climbing in without hitting anything or making any loud noises, and I struggled to do the same. It was hard enough trying to get through without making a sound, but I continuously pinched and bent my fingers in painful and curse-worthy ways.

When my feet hit my carpet, I stood up slowly. The smell of the home that I previously lived in was nothing of which I suspected; it smelled dirty. I did not feel at home in my own home anymore, and I didn’t need to have the lights on to know that something was definitely amiss.

“Aight, missy. Take my hand and Imma show ya somethin’ cool,” Silvano mused, standing up beside me and holding out his hand once more. “It’s the one thing ya ain’t know ‘bout me yet. Ain’t had to use it yet.”

Regardless of what I knew from the future, I took Silvano’s hand and held it, feeling nothing but a small wave course through my body and my veins. It was a familiar sensation, yet it felt almost nothing like the same man causing the two of us to gain temporary invisibility.

“See? Well, ya ain’t supposed to see nothin’… I ain’t know how to explain it, but I got this thing called invisibility, missy. Been workin’ on it for a long time with my momma ‘nd I can make us invisible for a while,” Silvano’s features lit up with the prospect of telling me something about himself. Honestly, it was one of the very few things I knew about him other than his exterior features. “Ain’t much, just don’t ask how I figured it out!”

“So you can take me to my room without–”

A creak interrupted me briefly and I instinctively began to crouch to the floor. However, with Silvano’s grip on my hand and remembering that we were invisible caused me to stop mid-action.

“Aight, let’s do this ‘fore we get caught. Can’t keep this up for very long, neither.”

I took the lead now, turning right and beginning to step out that way, toward some of our hard flooring. It would make our steps much more noticeable, but I hardly cared about that. I wanted to know everything. Did my room look the same… or did my mother decide to throw all of my things away in fear of my death?

The stairs stood in the way of that, but before I could even consider them, we would have to pass by my mother’s room to get to them.

_What if she sees us? What if we’re not actually invisible? Even worse; what if she looks different now, because she doesn’t have to worry about me anymore? What if she’s happy that I’m gone?_

The questions that I asked myself only seemed to get more irrational the longer I thought on it, and as a result, I hurried my way toward the stairs. Silvano’s hand began to warm with the potential of sweat as we climbed the carpeted stairs with minimal squeaking. We approached my room with a tense silence following us.

“Thought we were gonna see ya momma, missy,” Silvano asked quietly, but I ignored him this time.

The thought stuck with me that my mom was actually happy that I was gone now, and it tampered with my yearnings to see her. Instead, I wished to inspect my room and get a sense of familiarity back that I had been lacking for the past week.

It wasn’t long until I stood in front of the familiar door and I didn’t even hesitate to push it open as slowly as possible. The room itself remained the same; not a single piece of paper was out of place. If anything, it was cleaner than I had left it. Not volume-wise, but cleanliness-wise.

The door closed behind me as Silvano let himself in and sat atop of my bed.

“Aye, missy. Better hurry up now; I done left the window open. Ain’t got any pets, do ya?”

“No,” I answered softly as I went through all of my things on my desk. My laptop remained there, plugged in just as I had left it. “I can’t believe all of my stuff is where it should be.”

_This was a waste of time. There is no such thing as nostalgia here. There shouldn’t be. I should still be living here. I’m only going to make it worse._

My mind twisted itself in unimaginable patterns and shapes, trying to make sense of the decision I made to bring myself back to my house.

“Aye, missy,” Silvano addressed me softly, declining to move from his perch on my bed. “Ain’t gotta hide it from me. Ya ain’t wastin’ my time or nothin’ and I ain’t about to get caught for this little expedition. Ain’t gotta worry about Enzo, neither; what he does to me ain’t gonna concern ya at all. I done it outta the goodness of my own little heart ‘nd it ain’t even much, neither.”

I took his words into consideration, but I was still unsure about my journey ahead.

“So, I’m going to be stuck in this mess _forever_ then?” My voice choked up when I thought about being in the same place that we resided in now in the future. “I don’t want that. I want to go to college. I want to live peacefully. I don’t want to spend my whole life running away from the law!”

Silvano quieted me with a simple wave of his hand as he stood up, briefly listening for footsteps before continuing:

“Aye, missy, I wish I could help with that, but ya ain’t gotta choice no more. I ain’t tryna get ya to stay or nothin’ because ya ain’t gotta choice. Ya leave, ya’re a traitor to us. Gonna have people hunt ya down and hurt ya ‘nd I ain’t want none’a that.”

My eyes welled up as any window of opportunity disappeared from sight. I never really did have a choice, did I? Choices were not something that I ever had to make because they were always predetermined. My father had made this one for me. The future, the choice that Byakuran had made me choose, was also planned for me.

“Aye, but it ain’t so bad,” Silvano tilted his head as I turned away. “I ain’t never had any choices, neither. I was birthed in this lifestyle, missy. Imma make sure ya ain’t gonna have no troubles living with it, aight?”

I refused to answer; the last thing I wanted was to have to live with this horrid reality. I wanted nothing to do with criminal life. If anything, I had always wanted to be on the good side of the law; a politician or a policewoman… maybe even a lawyer. I wanted to write a book.

_You’ll never be able to do any of those things. You’ll be too busy running from the law to bother with education. You can’t be in public without always looking behind your shoulder. Your father wanted you to be this… and there isn’t any turning back._

“Aight?” Silvano pressed, and I stared back at him, allowing my pride to drift down my cheeks along with my tears. Aside from the cons, there were pros to it that I had addressed but not come to terms with completely.

_You can do what Byakuran told you to do. There is more than one way to gain power, and using the Mafia is your new best bet. You’ll never have to deal with love in this world; it’ll be too dangerous to get your name on any marriage license record even if you did fall in love. It’s nearly foolproof. _

With that, I took a deep breath. My salty tears danced on my lips now, but I gulped down the lump in my throat that barred me from responding coherently.

“Okay.”

It was my first step to accepting my place in the Mafia world, even if I was still scared absolutely shitless.

* * *

Silvano and I had slipped out of my former home unnoticed; I did so without looking back. My original intention to see my mother was long gone with the idea that seeing her would deter me from my new goal; to make it as high in the Todd Famiglia’s ranks as possible.

_If I can take charge, maybe I can get the power that Byakuran wanted me to have in the future._

It was ambitious, I realize, as the chances of the Famiglia’s newest runt (and a woman at that!) becoming one of the highest aspects of authority in an organization that said runt hardly knew anything about were as measly as the runt’s self-worth.

_This little runt isn’t going to cower anymore. If I can’t make it out in the real world, I’ll make it here. I’m not going to sit back and be the one committing the crimes anymore. I’ll simply ask the other people to do it, much like Paulo does now._

Silvano hardly even asked me about my sudden change-of-heart. He strolled alongside me, managing to hold the invisibility until we got back to the car. The light turned on briefly, but as Silvano turned on the key in the ignition, our faces disappeared again.

“Aight, let’s get back ‘fore somebody notices us,” Silvano sighed and put the car into drive. “’sides, missy, ya ain’t even comment on how cool my invisibility is! Man, and I thought ya’d be colored impressed…”

* * *

We began to (finally) pull back up to the safe house on a nearby street, but Silvano suddenly hit the brakes hard, causing me to fly forward. My heart jumped up into my throat as I swore:

“What the hell? Are you trying to scare the fucking shit–”

“Missy, hush up,” Silvano’s tone had immediately changed from its usual playful tune as he resumed driving the car as slowly as possible. “Don’t say nothin’ that ya ain’t want a wire to hear ‘nd lay low.”

I immediately whipped around to see a police car stationed only on the opposite side of the street from where we needed to make a right turn toward the safe house. The police car sat quietly on the corner, facing toward where we turned. I quickly put my head down, almost hitting my head on the airbag, but Silvano did stop the car when he parked backward in the driveway.

“Go!”

I ejected myself from the car, nearly hitting the other car in the driveway, but I managed to get out and Silvano grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. The unusual sensation of something pulsing through my body shot through me as we hurried to the door and Silvano fumbled for his keys. When he finally came across them, he hurriedly shoved me into the doorway and I scurried out of the way while he locked the door behind us.

“Why were they there?”

I panted, standing up as I cracked my neck. The adrenaline coursed through my veins before finally subsiding as we backed away from the windows and Silvano put the key to the car back into its little nook.

“Ain’t know, missy, but this is somethin’ ole Paulo gotta know. What if they caught onto us ‘bout the business? What if Enzo _is_ wired? That ole bastard.”

Silvano breathed heavily, placing the bulk of his weight against the wall.

“What if they know that I’m here?” I asked, suddenly feeling the weight of my own presence in a place such as this. “The drugs that you guys house could just be a bonus for them if they come looking for me.”

Silvano gave me a surprised glance and agreed with me with but a murmur.

“You’re right, missy… ‘nd ya ain’t gonna get us caught. Gotta go tell the boss ‘bout this one. He’s gonna know what to do.”

With that Silvano began to advance the other way toward the stairs that led to the second floor. I started toward him, but he quickly stopped me.

“Go downstairs,” Silvano pointed toward the door that led to the basement. “Plus, I gotta tell ya somethin’ just in case somethin’ does happen. Go down there so they don’t find ya, aight?”

He didn’t even wait for an answer as he began to skip steps like an expert on his way toward Paulo’s office.

_Assuming he’s even awake._

I did as I was told, albeit bitterly, thinking back to the times that I didn’t have to worry about getting followed around constantly. I hadn’t had to think about the consequences of me existing.

_I hope it isn’t that. Anything but that. I hope it’s not my fault._

As soon as the thought was produced, I remembered that nothing had been my fault. None of this, nothing that I was suddenly involved in, was my fault.

_My stupid father._

My whole life, my existence, was his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> What is with Fuuta calling Shoichi “Shoichi-nii”?
> 
> In the anime, he called Tsuna “Tsuna-nii” which seemed to translate to “big bro Tsuna” or something of that effect, and so I used that here. I don’t want to make this kid too OOC yet.
> 
> Hana has pride issues?
> 
> Yeah, since I modeled her after me (because believe it or not, this IS an SIOC) ((“what??”)) (((I know!!))) I decided to input my pride issues because I have them, too. To most people, they come off as stubborn and uptight, but I really don’t have a choice in the matter because in my own mind, it looks bad to me if I let other people do stuff that I could do myself (if that makes any sense to those who don’t have this internal issue). Maybe that will be Hana’s downfall. (Dun dun!)
> 
> Why is Fuuta even here? What is his purpose?
> 
> I’m thinking in the next chapter or so, we’ll find out. I don’t really want to waste any more time than I already have. Although, the manga/anime background may give a hint of why he’s here.
> 
> Is anything intense going to happen yet?
> 
> -laughs as I write the next chapter-
> 
> What is with Hana’s spur of emotions? Why can’t she just join the Mafia without crying about it? Then she suddenly wants to take over? What?
> 
> I’m trying to make it as realistic as I can. I’m sick to death of fanfics in this fandom being ridiculously out-of-proportion when it comes to emotions and probable things that can happen to a person who was REBORN into the KHR world. I can’t stand it and I’m trying to create a new precedent to meet because I haven’t read Fanfiction in this fandom because of it. Keep in mind her age as well; she’s only a couple weeks shy of seventeen. Not many sixteen year olds that I know would willingly join a crime organization when all they want is their normal lives. However, because Hana is modeled after me, I am told that I am a very ambitious person (what can I say; this whole story is ambitious with the number of times I’ve rewritten it) and I would rather be a leader than a follower. They say if you’re going to shoot for the sky, go beyond even that, and that is where she got her sudden burst of inspiration to go even further than what she may have been destined to be.
> 
> What was the point of this chapter? It’s so freaking long!
> 
> If you’ve read any of my other stuff, you would know that I enjoy setting stuff up. I have a feeling that next chapter will be a ton of fun, if you know what I mean.
> 
> Author’s Notes:
> 
> I apologize once again for the lack of information on the Flower of the Chapter.
> 
> …Silvano calls tears “sad water”. Let that sink in.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	14. Holly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, changing POVs, and one hell of a surprise (courtesy of your authoress's overactive mind).

 

_ Flashback: _

_I did as I was told, albeit bitterly, thinking back to the times that I didn't have to worry about getting followed around constantly. I hadn't had to think about the consequences of me existing._

_I hope it isn't that. Anything but that. I hope it's not my fault._

_As soon as the thought was produced, I remembered that nothing had been my fault. None of this, nothing that I was suddenly involved in, was my fault._

_My stupid father._

_My whole life, my existence, was his fault._

* * *

Chapter Fourteen: Holly

_While holly is not necessarily pegged as a flower, its meaning usually is synonymous with the beauty of one. The holly is a plant that is associated with winter time and is something that is used throughout not only the winter season, but especially around Christmas time. One of the most interesting facts about holly is that sometimes the wood is used to make chess pieces, which is great because the holly is actually a symbol of defense._

_Meaning:_   _"Am I forgotten?", defense, and/or domestic happiness._

* * *

Paulo intently stared up at the door where the blonde kid had stood only moments ago. The news that had just been explained to him in a rather rushed and conjoined matter only confirmed multiple suspicions within his own mind.

Enzo, being among his finest men and closest friends, was definitely not wired. Paulo always made sure to check all of his subordinates ahead of time, scoping out for places a wire would be hidden and even violating privacy to do so… with the safety of his business in mind, of course.

" _I'd never pin him as being the one wearing a wire. The fucker's too scared of me to try it."_

With the rest of this on the table, he could hardly even fathom finding the Star Child. It was his own personal mission; he had never written it down into official documents and he had never divulged the truth for his ruthless searches to anyone but Enzo and Rossie themselves. The Star Child was the key to ruling Japan in both Mafia and drug aspects, and having the police parked up the street did not calm his nerves in the slightest bit.

Even the thought of those pigs having a whiff of his business's scent was enough to make Paulo wriggle with the sickening potential of being locked up for hard time, but realizing that the only reason he did not achieve what he truly wanted solely because he was not careful enough was an even more infuriating thought.

" _I know I'm risking too much,"_ Paulo told himself inwardly, continuing to stare at the door as if it had answers that he knew he was going to get at sooner or later.  _"but I have to find the Star Child. With their superior knowledge of probabilities, they can predict how I can run both my business and the Mafia world to bring me to the top. I won't fail. I_ _can't_ _fail."_

As if the door felt his needs, a head surprisingly peeked in.

"Boss, I have come across important news about your mission."

Rossie's mostly-bald head shone in the light as Paulo let out a gusty sigh. Regardless of being in his own establishment, it still felt as though he was being watched. His guard had been up, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but it was quite sad that he expected so little of his followers.

"Get the hell out with it then."

Paulo smirked with the usual high of his power; Rossie's eyes glazed with fear for but a moment before shuffling into the small, cramped office. He gradually allowed his hand to wander up to his chin and caress his small stubble of hair.

"Well, I've been researching around and looking for a sign of the Star Child, like you said to, boss. I hardly found anything, but I do have evidence that the Star Child is in Namimori as of tonight for certain."

Paulo's interest heightened tenfold; as if he had expected to find the Star Child anytime soon, let alone have any evidence to go on for the possible capture that they would have to carry out.

"Keep going!"

"R-right!" Rossie glanced at the door as if he had heard something. "Well, I have reason to believe that the Star Child will be on the move tomorrow and we only have time to nab him tonight, boss. He's going to be on the move tomorrow and I have no idea where to. This could be your only chance."

"Where the hell did you get your information from?" Paulo asked testily, feeling the sudden weight of responsibility for his own mission.

"Well, I don't have much to go on," Rossie admitted, but he quickly divulged the rest of his information. "but I do know that the Star Child is going to be moving around tonight. This-this is your only chance, boss. Send Enzo and I out to get him and you'll have him before the crack of dawn."

"The hell are you standing here for then?" Paulo demanded, swearing relentlessly at Rossie's stricken face. "Get the damn kid and get your ass back to me!"

Rossie quickly agreed with a hasty "yes, sir" and bustled out of the room, where his footsteps slowly faded into silence. Even though it was quite questionable how Rossie had come across such valuable information with such a small margin of time to carry out this mission, it was all Paulo had.

" _There is no way in hell I'm letting the Star Child get away from me now."_

* * *

I sat down on my bed, feeling worry encase me from my fingers to my feet. I had just sat in my home for the first time in at least a week and, as far as I was concerned, no one had seen me. I had seen the world that I was so rudely yanked away from; normalcy. I had never even stopped to think about what life would have been like if I had never been exposed to this dark side of the corrupt world I now knew I lived in.

_If I had never been in the Mafia, would I have any idea how much of a necessity drugs are in my town alone? Would I even_ _ care _ _? Or would I just be going on with my own selfish dreams of becoming whatever I wanted while these people are busy claiming unimaginable riches just from distributing product?_

"Aye, missy, I gotta show ya the thing I was talkin' 'bout!" Silvano reappeared in a hurry, all signs of previous worry gone with the wind. "It ain't much, nah, but it oughta help if 'em cops get onto our case!"

The blonde groped around for the flashlight that he kept underneath his bed as I glanced at the dusty, near-broken digital clock beside us that read 2:52 AM. The memory of the responsibilities that I probably had tomorrow weighed down on me as I answered Silvano:

"I think I'm just going to go to bed."

" _What_?" Silvano shined the flashlight straight into my eyes and I ducked underneath my outstretched hand. "Missy, ya can't just go to bed! This is important! C'mon; it'll only take a second, too!"

I sighed heavily, swearing underneath my breath as I relented to Silvano's idea.

_What the hell; it'll only take a second, like he says. We're not going anywhere else._

Silvano seemed elated at the prospect of this, and he quickly ushered me out of my bed once again and led me toward the corner of the room, right underneath where the door to go down the steps must have been. Even with his flashlight, I could hardly see a thing.

"Aight, missy! See this here painting?" Silvano shined his flashlight over what must have been a portrait of a garden or something pretty, but it only looked as though moisture had gotten to it. "I ain't know why we use that thing to block the hole, but it ain't failed us yet!"

As he spoke, he got down on one knee and began to push the painting to the side, allowing nothing but a dark hole to show. It was not a particularly pretty hole (or a large one, in fact) but I supposed that in a dire situation, we would be the first ones through it.

"See that? Aye, we gonna crawl through that at the first sign of trouble. Ain't gonna do it now, missy, don't get all riled up! It leads all sorts'a places, yeah, but ya gotta know where to go. I got that part covered though, so ya ain't gotta worry."

I squinted as hard as I could; I couldn't see into the hole in the slightest. The dark, enclosed space made me a little nauseous when I thought about it, even if I wasn't claustrophobic in any sense.

"How do you even see in there?" I asked, carefully trying to keep the worry out of my voice.

"Ya think I have this flashlight for nothin'?" Silvano asked, chuckling quietly. "Nah, missy. It's gonna be dark 'nd all, but we're gonna be goin' through it together if we needa use it."

I nodded slowly as Silvano moved the painting back into its original place in front of the hole. Regardless of the dusty and almost dirty atmosphere in the cellar, the once-beautiful painting stared back at me with a hidden meaning. The pinks that meshed together with the greens and made an unsightly color of brown did not make sense in my tired and overworked mind.

I had no idea at the time that it was alluding to two worlds clashing into one giant mess.

* * *

Shoichi kept his tired eyes trained on the energetic child that bounced relentlessly on his bed. So-called Fuuta hadn't stopped talking all night, and Shoichi had no choice but to sit there and listen to him. After all, Fuuta was only allowed to stay for tonight and then Shoichi's mother would kick him out.

"Ooh! Shoichi-nii, what should we do now?" Fuuta suddenly stopped bouncing on the bed as he pointed to the clock that read 3:24 AM. "I'm bored!"

"You should be asleep!" Shoichi felt his patience begin to waver with the stress of looking after a child who was probably more than a couple of years younger than he was. "Not many other kids would stay up this late just because!"

Fuuta seemed to ignore it as a loud buzz caused the both of them to stiffen, but Shoichi merely reached for his phone.

" _Who would text me at this hour?"_

A small, faint part of him wished that it was Hana. If he had even the smallest sign that she was still alive, he'd be satisfied. He tried his best not to think about her, especially with the kid distracting him, but without her, life seemed dull. Shoichi didn't have her usual fiery attitude to convince him that he wasn't a lonely piece of unread newspaper.

Instead, Shoichi was greeted with nothing but yet another scary message:

_Private Number_

_3:26 AM_

_Go for a walk in the park. Now._

Shoichi dropped his phone in shock at this rate; absolutely not. Every time this damn number texted him, he was presented with weird shit.

"Shoichi-nii?" Fuuta asked, suddenly becoming calm and standing still. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing," Shoichi wiped his red hair away from his face and his glasses quickly, staring at his phone. "I just got a… a text that is telling me we should go for a walk, but I don't think–"

"A walk? That'd be fun!"

Fuuta had already interrupted him and ignored the warning that Shoichi wanted to divulge.

"N-no, wait! I don't think it'd be a good idea!" Shoichi hurriedly tried to reason with Fuuta, but the kid had already opened the door to his living room with it in his mind that a walk was necessary. "Fuuta, come back! Seriously? Ah…"

* * *

Shoichi hadn't even been able to catch Fuuta until he stood outside of the apartment building in the parking lot, staring straight ahead. He didn't seem to have anything in particular on his mind, but Shoichi could hardly read him in the first place.

"Where do you want to go for a walk?" Shoichi asked, pointedly ignoring the worrying text that he had received. Every single time that number decided to contact him, something went wrong. He couldn't put his finger on it, but this time, it sounded serious.

" _Anywhere but the park."_

Fuuta slowly turned toward Shoichi but said nothing as he made a face. It wasn't any sort of particular face, but it was similar to that of a scowl. He muttered something under his breath, but said nothing as he slowly backed away.

"Shoichi-nii, I'm going to walk by myself!" Regardless of the tense situation, Fuuta's voice still had a cheery ring to it. "I'm going to leave early, so I'll take a walk and come back to say goodbye."

"W-what? Why would you do that?" Surprised, Shoichi stepped forward into the parking lot as well. "Where are y-you going to go?"

Fuuta turned back briefly before beginning to walk away again. "I'm going to find home!"

" _What the hell does he mean 'home'? He told me earlier that 'home' was with_ _me_ _, which makes no damn sense, and now he's going to find a different 'home'? What's wrong with this kid?"_

Against his better judgment, Shoichi glanced back at the automatic door to the apartment complex, but quickly jogged toward where Fuuta stood.

"I don't think you should follow me, Shoichi-nii," Fuuta's cheerful tone had dwindled down to a quiet, nervous whisper. "I don't know if you want to share a home with me."

" _Why is he being so creepy about it?"_

"I-I have my own home, but–"

"Shoichi-nii," Fuuta stopped him from responding with seriousness in his tone. "Would you hate me if I told you that I'm not a normal eleven-year-old?"

"You're obviously not!" Shoichi stated, surprised that the kid would have the audacity to call himself 'normal'.

Fuuta flinched and made a face before allowing his shaky voice to say more:

"What if… I could give statistics on anything you asked about? Would you hate me then?"

Shoichi's chest tensed up as he shook his head, forcing himself to listen to Fuuta and see what he was getting at. If anything, he wanted to know why Fuuta was such a weird kid.

"…Would you hate me if I told you I could predict the future? If I…  _knew_  the different paths the future could take? If I knew what could happen to us tonight?"

" _Tonight? What the hell is he talking about?"_

"A-are you trying to scare me? Because it's not w-working," Shoichi tried to put up a front; predictions are always possible. Hell, Shoichi could predict the future himself if he wanted to, but… to  _know_  what the future holds was out of line. There was no way that it was possible.

"I'm not trying to scare you," Fuuta insisted, but he quickly stopped when Shoichi's eyebrows meshed into each other in a thoughtful manner. "I just don't think that… that you coming with me will be a good thing for the future."

Shoichi slowly began to think again, and everything he seemed to come up with made hardly any sense. Fuuta stared at him and his eyes darkened until he took a deep breath.

"If you want to go with me, we have to go to the park, Shoichi-nii."

Shoichi stopped breathing for a moment, thinking about the text that he had received.

"Do… you  _know_  anything about the texts that I get, telling me what my next move should be?"

Fuuta had turned away, heading toward the park as he put his hands into the pockets of his oversized winter coat.

"No."

Regardless of his answer, Shoichi knew that he knew more that he was letting on, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

* * *

Shoichi had to exert most of his strength to keep up with Fuuta; regardless of the oversized coat and his short legs, the kid was fast. His speed must have come from either youth or just plain practice, but he hadn't let up until he reached the silent atmosphere of the park.

On any other night, a trip to the park would have been mere bliss; it was so quiet that even from paces away, Shoichi could hear Fuuta's labored breathing. The stars were in plain view in the sky, and even though the circumstances of the night were nerve-wracking, the night itself was almost peaceful. Almost.

Fuuta had stopped running for only a second before suddenly letting out a yelp, but ultimately resolving to struggling. A third person had appeared, holding the struggling kid so tightly around the mouth that the struggle could hardly be heard.

"Sho-chi-ii, r-n!" Fuuta's attempted scream was useless, as Shoichi had already turned on his heel and allowed his flight instinct to take over. He had hardly begun to pick up speed as someone clotheslined him and he fell to the concrete face-first.

The clash of glass and concrete shattered Shoichi's glasses on contact, but it was nothing in comparison to the shock of the attack.

As fast as it'd happened, it was over with a swift and calculated punch to the back of the neck and a getaway car revving up its engine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> Why do you enjoy cliffhangers?
> 
> Because it gives me more room to explain next chapter! I hadn't planned on this chapter being so short, but I guess it kind of works out in the sense that last chapter was 19 pages in Microsoft Word.
> 
> Is Paulo important to your story?
> 
> Just a little, yeah. There will be a point where he stops being so important, though. For now, I will occasionally give him his own little blurbs until that point because he does allow the story to progress forward and make a little bit of sense. Also, I noticed this especially while writing this chapter: I'm trying my absolute best to not make him like Xanxus. I write Xanxus extremely well (in my opinion) and I think that's beginning to shine through with Paulo and I don't mean to do that.
> 
> Did you mean to make Fuuta creepy?
> 
> Actually, no. I'm sorry. I'm still trying to find my footing with him and I have realized that he comes off as a bit creepy. However, that should go away within the next chapter because I'll find my footing there.
> 
> Why is Fuuta eleven? I thought he was nine in canon?
> 
> You're right. In canon, he was nine. However, this is about two years later and the canon you're referring to seems to have never happened. :)
> 
> But wait! Why is Shoichi getting targeted, too?
> 
> Lesson number two of the Mafia (besides "get the hell away from the windows"): never leave any witnesses. Don't ask me though; I'm just your lowly authoress with two police parents. :)
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> Like my Fanfiction? Please tell me so!
> 
> ~Teafully~


	15. Peach Blossom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, limited POV changes, maybe one long-awaited explanation, insight to minor characters, and a severe lack of comedy provided by yours truly.

 

_ Flashback: _

_Fuuta had stopped running for only a second before suddenly letting out a yelp, but ultimately resolving to struggling. A third person had appeared, holding the struggling kid so tightly around the mouth that the struggle could hardly be heard._

" _Sho-chi-ii, r-n!" Fuuta's attempted scream was useless, as Shoichi had already turned on his heel and allowed his flight instinct to take over. He had hardly begun to pick up speed as someone clotheslined him and he fell to the concrete face-first._

_The clash of glass and concrete shattered Shoichi's glasses on contact, but it was nothing in comparison to the shock of the attack._

_As fast as it'd happened, it was over with a swift and calculated punch to the back of the neck and a getaway car revving up its engine._

* * *

Chapter Fifteen: Peach Blossom

_The peach tree bears a juicy fruit of the same name. Peach blossoms are produced in early spring before the leaves. Many peach trees are planted in commercial orchards, and some are cultivated in gardens as ornamentals._   _Peach blossoms can range from light pink to carmine to purplish in color._

_Meaning:  "I am your captive", luck, and/or prosperity._

* * *

Violetta had stepped on the gas as hard as she could once she had heard Enzo's signal whistle, propelling the car forward. While Rossie had planned on just Enzo and himself going ahead with this small operation, Rossie had pointed out that if they were met with trouble, they needed a lookout. Violetta had offered herself for the job, but at the cost of her dignity as she had only been allowed to watch from afar in the car, ready to speed away at the sign of trouble. They hadn't filled her in in the slightest bit who they were trying to capture and why, but Violetta had assumed it was someone who more or less deserved it.

The two had bickered as usual; Rossie trying to figure out a practical itinerary to go about his master plan and Enzo insisting that the only way to "finish the job", as he had put it, was to go in without overthinking the situation. It was not until Violetta had quietly rolled up to the park that the bickering two had left the vehicle and she had decided to lay in wait with her thoughts.

Her son had only recently begun to warm up to the newest member of their small, working family. Personally, Violetta herself had not minded the girl. Regardless of her attitude, she usually knew when to not get in the way and when to keep her mouth shut. After all, Silvano finally had someone else to talk to. Having a son grow up in such a life was a difficult enough decision for her to make without the thought of him growing up without other children his age like most "normal" children had. The thought kept her sane. At least her son had  _something_  to be proud of.

The car had landed on a rough patch of grass on the park and Violetta pondered on how to get the car out of the mess quietly as Enzo and Rossie piled into the car, dragging two unconscious bodies into the car, sprawling them wherever they felt like it without being careless.

"Do you wish to dump the bodies?" Violetta asked quietly, placing both hands on the steering wheel as she prepared to floor it to the outskirts of Namimori, but Rossie's somewhat-calm voice stopped her. "They're not dead. We're taking them both to Paulo."

Enzo snorted audibly from his seat. "I don't see why we have to take them both. This one could easily be rolled down a hill and left to rot in solitude. We got what we came for plus a little extra. Paulo wouldn't care for it."

"I do hope you're thinking of all of the possibilities," Rossie countered as Violetta stepped on the gas while putting the car into reverse. "The last thing we want is a witness coming out and saying that they saw us firsthand get ahold of this worm."

The car finally met the road with a great heave of the tires as Violetta momentarily groped for control of the vehicle, but she ultimately was able to speed off at a considerable speed to clear the area.

"What goes on between you two and the boss?" Violetta asked Enzo especially, but Rossie answered the question with a knowing grunt. "You'll find out soon enough, Violetta. He has what he was looking for now."

" _Maybe_  he will if we don't get pulled over. Then, we'll be stuck like a couple of mice in a cat's paws."

Violetta glanced into the rearview mirror reluctantly; Enzo had been on-edge lately and it had been bothering her for the past couple of days. Usually, his lip and cool sass were assets to a normal day, but now all Enzo had to offer were quick-witted insults and pessimistic statements.

"At least tell me who you have gone and captured," Violetta insisted as she slowed to a stop at a red light. "I can't continue to drive around crazy-like without an idea for an alibi if I haven't an idea what goes on."

The two in the back exchanged glances as Rossie turned to her with nothing but seriousness on his face as the light turned green.

"The boss asked us to do a special favor for him and capture someone, so we did. Unfortunately, he seemed to have a friend with him, so we captured him as well to avoid a witness situation."

Violetta glanced back to the two unconscious bodies that lay atop of her coworkers, but she merely sighed before focusing on the road.

" _They're only trying to do what the boss told them to do. It is only the best for them, is it not?"_

* * *

I sat up in a cold sweat only an hour later, as it read 4:02 AM now. The idea of a nightmare was only an understatement, but I couldn't remember what I had seen… only the familiar feeling of purple on the walls of a room… but it couldn't have been  _my_  room.

_That doesn't make any sense… I can't even remember what was so scary that I woke up because of it!_

I shook my head in frustration at myself, but I quickly stopped and looked up at the ceiling. Everything seemed to be as it would be on any normal night, but the ceiling dipped in a way that let me know someone was standing on it. Seconds later, I could hear more footsteps and even the hum of voices carrying into the floorboards and into the cellar.

"Silvano!" I hissed as quietly as I could, but the idiot only rolled over onto his other side.

"Sil-va-no!" I even tried separating every syllable to see if it would help, but that didn't even warrant a response.

Without even thinking about it, I slid out of my own bed and nudged him. "There's something going on upstairs and I don't know what it is. Do you think it has something to do with Enzo being wired?"

I waited patiently as his eyes blinked open, but he only stared blankly at me before muttering:

"Go back to sleep, missy. It ain't nothin'."

I groaned before finally electing to slapping his shoulder and raising my voice considerably. "It  _is_  something! I don't want to be here when the police come through the door yelling about a search warrant!"

Oddly enough, the mention of law enforcement gave me a jolt to the stomach. I hadn't noticed it much before when I had real dreams of joining the force, but now, it only instilled a reaction that reminded me of the feeling of holding a gun in my hands; fear. For some reason, law enforcement was something that I couldn't even fathom being around and the sensation seemed to come out of nowhere, just like my sudden uneasiness when it came to firearms.

Before I could even think about the meaning behind the thought, Silvano finally sat up, albeit slowly, and rubbing his eyes.

"Mm, aight missy. I'll go 'nd check. If it ain't nothin', I ain't gonna be happy."

With that, he finally got up and slunk toward the rickety stairs. I could see the fatigue in his step as I did finally decide to follow him at a close pace, unable to keep myself still.

_It's so possible that it could be danger! I don't want to be the only one out of the loop if it is, either!_

Silvano had made it to the top of the steps and opened the door ever-so-slowly before gasping and shutting it, running back down to me. All traces of his sleep seemed to be gone with whatever he had seen.

"What? Is it something bad?"

I couldn't resist the shake in my voice as I glanced in the direction of the ruined painting that blocked our only escape route, but Silvano shook his head.

"Nah! Looks like Enzo 'nd Rossie got somebody, but I ain't sure who or why. Aye, for all I know, could be more recruits like ya, missy."

I stared back at the door that Silvano had closed before turning back to him, trying to shake the ominous feeling off of my shoulders.

"I hope so! Maybe then, someone else can see just how much bullshit I have to put up with around here."

A sudden  _thump_  sounded from beyond the door and I jumped, but Silvano merely turned around to stare at the door. It twitched and I stepped back just in case, but the only noise was the soft hum of talking from beyond the door. While I couldn't hear much, I did notice that Silvano's eyebrows crinkled as if he was confused before advancing up the stairs again and as he cracked open the door, a sea of voices followed:

"…hell were you thinking?" Paulo's authoritative voice boomed, and I wondered how I hadn't been able to hear his voice before Silvano opened the door.

"W–we got the Star Child like you wanted!" Rossie's nervous voice seemed to be at a higher octave than usual as he spoke to the boss, but Enzo seemed to take over rather smoothly: "We also picked up a witness just in case. I figured since we are low on recruits, gaining one and only one throughout the entire lifetime of your order, that this one could work for our cause… with presumable persuasion, of course."

_Another person getting caught up in this mess just like me? What if they're on the same page as me? What if they agree with my "I would rather die than get caught up in organized crime" bit that I had put up until recent?_

The thought was comforting, to know that in such an odd predicament that I was by no means alone. There would be someone else to share my sorrows with… not to mention that said "someone else" would also have to deal with Silvano alongside me.

Silvano's eyes visibly narrowed as if he had heard my thought about him, but he peeked through the door just a little more before suddenly jumping backward a couple of steps.

"Mm, missy; it looks like Rossie 'nd Enzo captured somebody, but someone else is there who ain't s'posed to be. That's why the boss's pissed."

Just as the words came out of his mouth, another figure slipped through the door and the door closed harshly. The new presence was stuck on the same, rickety stairs that Silvano stood on. They hardly seemed as if they could stand up straight, but they managed as Silvano crept toward them and blocked my view.

"Ah? Who the hell are ya?"

I waited for the figure to give an answer, but nothing seemed to be sufficient for the question that Silvano had asked.

"I–um…"

I crept closer, contemplating whether to join the duo on the stairs or not. They had never looked particularly safe to me, so I refrained from it as Silvano stalked around the person who had appeared, but the person did not appear to have anything intelligent to say.

"Nothin', huh?" Silvano clicked his tongue and waved to me. "Hah, missy! He's aight, sure, but he ain't know how to form a sentence, neither. Guess it's better than another one'a yaself."

I snorted at his comment, but when I squinted my eyes to get a better look through my sleepy haze, I recognized the familiar red-ish hue of the hair of the person that Silvano had begun to escort down the stairs.

I didn't want to believe what I just saw.

"Shoichi?" I nervously asked just as Silvano and said person passed by me.

Silvano and the kid who  _must_  have been my childhood friend turned slowly, but I faintly doubted my own instinct; the Shoichi that I knew had prescription glasses because of his terrible eyesight, and this person lacked those. However, I had no doubt in my mind after I heard his voice once again:

"H–huh? How do you know my–?"

_He must not recognize me without his glasses._

"Missy, ya know this guy?" Silvano shot me one of the more confused looks that he could muster up, but before I could answer, he yawned as if he was almost uninterested. "Anyways, as ya can see, it's late and I ain't gotten no sleep tonight… aye, 'nd havin' a newbie to take care of is almost like babysittin'. Think ya can handle 'im, missy? He ain't look dangerous none."

I took a quick glance at Shoichi, whose eyes only twitched when Silvano gave him a quick glance and he headed toward his bed, noticeably wary. When the bed squeaked, I turned back to Shoichi. He looked nervous and much more tired than I remembered him being. Hell, I had lost count of the days it'd been since we'd last seen each other. The argument that we had had was far in the back of my mind and it was almost a luxury to think that we had the time to argue about something so trivial in the wake of this Mafia business.

_What the hell is he doing here… and why?_

His eyebrows suddenly creased and I felt myself tense. He  _shouldn't_  be here. There was no reason he had to be here other than being unfortunately captured. He couldn't turn out the way that I did; stuck in a destiny that was unwilling to change.

"W–who are you?" Shoichi asked nervously, squinting around the dark space that we stood in, as if to look for a quick exit. While his nervousness was characteristic, I couldn't say that I was used to it around me.

"Don't you recognize me, you idiot?" I felt the sourness of the situation rest on my tongue, and Shoichi flinched. "It's me, Hana."

My heart dropped when he blinked disbelievingly, but nodded in my general direction after a minute.

"A–are you sure?"

"Of  _course_  I'm sure!" I snapped, immediately feeling guilty about shouting at him. I couldn't simply keep the sass out of my voice regardless, even if I  _did_  feel the least bit grateful that I was reunited with my best friend. "I would  _know_ , wouldn't I?"

Shoichi's face gradually became less stiff and I watched emotion flood into his features until he briefly stepped toward me as if to get a closer look at my face.

"I–we all thought… we thought that you were dead, Hana. Your mom has been losing her mind over you, Kyoko and Y-Yamamoto have been so worried that they can't even face her, and I–"

I watched his fearful face morph into some obscure form of anger and the realization slowly set in.

I  _had_  been missed in the world that I once lived in. No one had forgotten about me, much less my three best friends and my mother.

"You did?"

The fire in Shoichi's eyes only died down when I asked the quiet, disbelieving question. In all honesty, I had thought people had forgotten about me in the past week. I thought they all had given up looking for me. I honestly thought that I meant next to nothing to them, but what Shoichi had just told me let me know just how wrong I was.

"W–what  _else_  were we supposed to think?" His voice rose only slightly, but I noticed the familiar feeling tension in the air from when we fought. "That y–you were okay but hiding somewhere o–or playing some elaborate trick on us? No… I–I thought you w–were  _dead_ , Hana!"

_He's so angry with me that his voice is shaking._

My eyes continued to widen as I remembered the only times that Shoichi's voice shook the way that it was just then were when he was either nervous or angry… and neither of which were ever directed toward me in such tense quarters.

I stepped forward only to allow myself to feel what I knew was the human emotion of relief, but I tried to refrain from it as I briefly allowed him to encase me with his arms and pull me into a tight embrace. It was something that I had never let him or myself do; I had abstained as much as I could from human contact since Byakuran had told me about how I had chosen love instead of power in the future and the repercussions of my decision. As a result, I tried my best to not let my emotions get into the way.

_Just this one time won't hurt, will it?_

"Why… why didn't you tell me?" Shoichi's voice had gotten quieter as his embrace got tighter. "I thought you died… I thought…  _you_   _died_ …"

I could feel the emotion pulsing from him as I slightly gave into myself, trying to control myself from acting as if I was glad he had come to such a dangerous place. The real question was… why?

"I'm  _fine_ , Shoichi! Gosh, and I would have thought you were  _glad_  that I disappeared for a while! At least you didn't have to put up with my terrible attitude!"

A laugh slithered its way out of my mouth, but my eyes had misted up. I quickly stopped and withdrew my arms and Shoichi did the same, slightly tilting his head the same way I was used to whenever he got confused.

"What happened to your glasses? Did you break them again?" I teased, trying to lighten our dark situation and distract myself from my misty eyes, but Shoichi seemed to see through my cover up. "It's great to see you again, Hana. It's okay t–to cry, you know."

I was about to reprimand him again, but I noticed that his own eyes were beginning to fill just like mine. Regardless, I wiped my stubborn eyes and denied to myself that I was just as happy to see him as he was to me.

"Seriously, idiot! What happened to your glasses?"

He had to have taken notice of me wiping my eyes, but he ignored it and answered me with a worried frown on his face.

"They're broken," Shoichi glanced around with his blurry eyes and then turned straight back to me. "Where are we and what happened to you? What's going on here?"

"I have a couple of questions first!" I insisted, remembering that I probably shouldn't breathe a  _word_  to him about the Mafia, but I had to know how he had ended up here in the first place as well. "What the hell are  _you_  doing here?"

Shoichi took on his usual exasperated face, complete with furrowed eyebrows and his mouth twisted into an unsightly frown.

"I'm not sure, Hana. I was with… this kid that I met earlier and weird stuff happened and suddenly I ended up here. I woke up in a car and I was brought here where I was thrown onto the stairs."

_He's not even making any sense! What kid?_

"Aye, it's almost 4:30 in the mornin' and ya gotta get up 'nd clean, missy," Silvano snorted from his bed. "Gotta go to sleep sometime."

I rolled my eyes at that; as if I cared a damn bit about getting up to clean up the frequent messes of people who had hardly given a single care in the world to my own personal feelings.

"Come off it, Silvano!" I barely kept myself from swearing at him. "It's not like I get to see one of my best friends every day!"

At that, Silvano sat up, completely erect, and stared at me from the darkness.

"Best friend, ya say? So ya ain't just know this guy from school, hah?"

He slowly began to approach me with caution and he pushed past me to get a better look of my best friend, circling him and groping around for the light switch as he passed it. When the light bathed the three of us, I could see the caution in Silvano's eyes.

Shoichi even looked scared as Silvano loomed only a couple of inches over his own head.

"Ya sure ya know this guy, missy?" Silvano asked me, slowly halting right in front of my blurry-eyed friend, chuckling as he glanced back at me. "He ain't seem like the type'a guy ya'd be known to talk to."

I welcomed the thought with a small, malicious smile as Shoichi's eyebrows scrunched together. It was reminiscent of the past; when I hadn't had to deal with the complications of the hell that is the Mafia.

"Shoichi, this is Silvano," I introduced the newfound idiot to the original idiot. "I don't know how to explain him to you… you'll get the hang of it. He's annoying."

"Missy, I'm right 'ere!" I snorted in acknowledgement, but Silvano quickly jumped onto a new topic. "Why's this kid even 'ere? Pretty sure he'd be useless without his glasses, so I ain't see why Rossie 'nd Enzo gotta take him back 'ere. Imagine tryna count money without bein' able to see!"

Silvano actually laughed at his own suggestion and Shoichi's weariness heightened when I moved closer to the two. His eyebrows twitched, but I couldn't really tell why. Putting myself in his shoes, the confusion that he felt must be crippling.

_I don't know if I'm allowed to tell him about the Mafia._

"I can't really see w–without my glasses and it makes me a u–useless post-it note…" Shoichi stammered. "I just want to know why… I'm here in the first place. You too, Hana. What happened?"

I stopped before cutting a glance at Silvano, who appeared to have more to say, but he had pointedly turned away, as if he expected me to come up with my own explanation.

_Do I tell him the truth or do I let him wonder? Would he take kindly to the decisions of me and those who forced me into living this life? Does Paulo even want him involved in the first place?_

The unanswered questions swirled around my head until Shoichi's eyebrows swooped up.

_He knows I'm not telling him something._

No matter how hard I tried, though, there was no way I could explain it to him in an amicable way. There  _is_  no nice way to explain how your whole life has been altered by the decision that you haven't even gotten to make yet; by the decisions that others have made for you.

"Aight, well, I ain't just gonna sit 'round waitin' for an explanation," Silvano finally resolved, and I noticed how well he held his composure compared to the usual, hyperactive display he showed. "I'm gonna go up there 'nd see what in hell's goin' on."

"I'll go with you," I immediately volunteered. "If you want me to, that is…"

After my days cramped here in the cellar of this old, creaky home, I had begun to differentiate between the times when my input was needed and when it was despised. However, Silvano actually smiled my way.

"Aye, ain't nothin' wrong with ya comin' with me. As long as ya're with me, ain't nobody gonna say nothin'."

Shoichi began to follow us as we advanced toward the stairs, but Silvano turned and poked him right between the eyes.

"Nope. Ain't even know ya're status yet, Ecchi."

I tried to refrain from laughing as Shoichi's face heated up and his ears tried their best to mimic the color of his hair, but I couldn't help myself as Silvano sent my best friend into hysterics as he jumped away, his voice shaking from the ordeal:

"…W–why would you call me that? I–I…!"

Even Silvano himself had to crack a laugh at his own word choice before becoming serious again.

"I ain't even tryna suggest nothin'; now, I'm gonna do it just so ya flip out, Ecchi… but ya still gotta stay down 'ere. Ain't know if ya're gonna hear somethin' ya ain't gotta."

I thought I imagined that last part as I waved to my best friend, knowing that all he could see was a blurb of me. He waved back reluctantly, but I could see the confusion in his gaze through his smile and the relief of knowing that I was alive.

_I wish I could talk to him straight like the old days. Then, I wouldn't have to worry about putting a whole organization's lives on the line just from simply telling my best friend what's going on._

* * *

Silvano had opened the door for me as we reached the top of the creaky stairs and I was greeted by the dim light of the kitchen and a sole lamp near the living room. The light was so faint that I had to double-check that Silvano was still visible behind me, where he flashed me a shushing motion and closed the door behind him with his foot and glanced around.

The yelling by Paulo himself had stopped and the congregation that had to have been there beforehand had vanished. The house filled with nothing but my quick breaths and Silvano's calm ones.

I jumped at the sound of a foot stomping with a squeak, but Silvano only muffled his laughter.

"Ain't think ya'd be the type to be scared, missy!" He snickered. "It just ain't seem like ya at all!"

My ears burned with embarrassment. As if I  _wanted_  to jump; I always was a fraidy-cat. I couldn't even sit through a scary movie on a normal basis, even if it was in a movie theatre with a multitude of people around. The last time I did, I didn't sleep right for a week.

_Hell of a help when you're in organized crime. Just_ _ living _ _is a scary movie._

"I get it!" I retorted. "I'm just not used to this, that's all. I don't like being scared! And if you–"

I cut myself off when voices floated down from above us on the second floor. Silvano even wiped the smirk off of his pseudo-gentle face and advanced forward, making sure I followed him all of the way.

We reached the top of the stairs and I glanced at Paulo's office door; the light was on inside. While the voices had quieted once again, Silvano seemed as certain as I that the answers to what was going on were behind that door.

I cautiously approached the door myself, avoiding being more reckless than usual. I pushed my ear against the wood with curiosity, ignoring my better judgment.

"Missy, the hell ya think ya're doin'?" Silvano's voice stressed itself with the effort to stay quiet and calm.

I waved him away as I focused on the low sounds until they became words. Paulo was speaking, trying to keep his voice low:

"…is the key to taking over. I don't want any of you halfwits screwing this up for me and I want this fucker under wraps. Understood?"

A collective murmur went up until I heard my father's voice. "Is he to stay with the others in the cellar?"

"Where the hell else are we going to put him? He'll stay with the others where he belongs and he'll figure out what the hell we're doing and why we need him so badly. Maybe he'll sympathize with those kids or some shit, I don't give a fuck. I would rather him not out of my sight, but I don't want him getting scared shitless and attempting to run away because he thinks we're keeping him prisoner."

_Who the hell are they talking about?_

I held my breath, waiting for someone to start up another conversation, but I was greeted with nothing but an angry face in front of me… or what  _would_  have been angry face if I could see the eyes of a certain Mafia member.

"Eavesdropping, are we?" Enzo seemed particularly off tonight; after sending both Silvano and I weird vibes just earlier in the night, he now donned a scowl that could compete with my own father's. Regardless, the brunt of his cool anger was clearly directed toward me. "You should know that the boss, nor I, or anyone else around here for that matter appreciates snot-nosed kids getting into shit they shouldn't."

_Snot-nosed kid._ As if that was all I amounted to. As if that was all I was good for. Being a  _snot-nosed kid._

I felt myself unhinge at the prospect of being called worthless as well as the looming thought that there was something the matter with this guy in the first place. Silvano's hand curled around my wrist as he attempted to pull me out of Enzo's way before I did something stupid, but I was already well on my way:

"The  _hell_  you think you're talking to?" Rashly, I flailed around as Silvano's grip loosened and I nearly hit Enzo's chest. "You think I'm just going to sit down in that damned cellar and wait until you want me to do shit for you without knowing the full fucking extent this shit goes on to?"

"Disrespectful wench!" Silvano quickly lunged in front of me before Enzo even rose up his hand in defense of his pride. I almost lost my balance, but I grabbed onto his shirt to prevent myself from completely losing my sense of steadiness. "Missy ain't mean nothin' by it, I swear!"

While I  _should_  have regretted the words that came out of my mouth as Silvano suggested, I had no such thoughts of the sort.

_He shouldn't have called me that shit. I shouldn't have to worry about being kept in the dark while working for organized crime. I shouldn't have to be told it's none of my fucking business when_ _ I'm _ _the one risking my hide out there for Paulo's sake._

"Oi, the fuck is going on over there?" Paulo's usually dark and condescending voice floated over the thoughts crowding my head and Silvano and Enzo's exchange.

"Just a couple of flies, boss."

Enzo's sneer was so obvious that I wanted to wipe it right off of his smug face, but Silvano tensed beside me as I realized what I may have done. Sure, if I had kept my mouth shut and we had just handled being reprimanded like a couple of cheating children after a quiz, I probably wouldn't have screwed him over. However, I had just fought back, in front of the boss, and probably whoever else was in the room.

_I was openly defiant and whether my sentence wears off on Silvano and Shoichi might ride on how I handle Paulo._

"Bring them to me."

Even Paulo himself didn't seem to be in the mood for this shit. Enzo's hand reached for the collar of my shirt as I was forced into Paulo's rather full office; I could recognize my father, Rossie, and Silvano's mother, Violetta immediately. Violetta appeared to be in possession of another person that I did not recognize, nor had the time to as I was hastily dragged to Paulo alongside of Silvano.

"The hell you kids taking me for?" Paulo didn't even sound angry anymore as he nudged the stubble of hair on his chin, glaring first and foremost at Silvano's somewhat fearful face. "Think you can just come around and spy like you own the damn place?"

"No," I quickly answered in my own defense, mentally taking full responsibility for my own actions. "I just think I shouldn't have to sit on my ass, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for some information about what I'm doing here. I shouldn't have to wonder if I'm doing what I think will best further your efforts without knowing what your efforts even are!"

Silvano took a quick glance at me before opening his mouth to speak, but he was quickly cut off.

"You don't deserve  _shit_  the way I see it, kid," Paulo's left eye twitched. "I don't answer to you or anyone else here. That's why  _I'm_  the boss. You shit stains answer to  _me_."

"Yeah, and you'd better think twice about mouthin' off, too."

Enzo's warning came with a sharp tug to my collar. I hardly resisted swearing as the situation began to turn grim right in front of me.

"Regardless," I turned to see Violetta speak, her light voice settling in nicely with the tension in the room. "I do think she should know what goes on. She is confused, boss."

Silvano smiled brightly at his mother, a smile that she easily returned, as my father stepped forward.

"I don't think you have much of a choice in this one, Paulo. They might as well know, or they'll do even more sneaking around."

I grimaced at the sound of my father's voice as he stepped back again, allowing his words to settle and the tense atmosphere to hide their meaning.

"I don't need you fuckers to tell me those things," Paulo snapped back, his unquestionable anger focused behind both Silvano and I. "I'm not telling these kids shit, other than the fact that they've got another roommate besides the one that's already in the cellar."

_The hell does he think we're going to do about this? Just sit here and let him walk all over us and keep important shit from us? How are we supposed to know that this isn't some elaborate kidnapping scheme?_

Silvano shook his head in my direction as the thoughts raced through my head. It was as if he could hear my thoughts as if I had spoken them aloud. I couldn't bear to get him into any more trouble, though, so I kept my damn mouth shut.

I turned to Paulo as he gestured to the door.

"I'd stay the hell out of my sight if I were you, girl," he warned me as Silvano had already begun to get ushered the hell out by Enzo, who still held onto my collar for dear life. "I don't take kindly to open defiance. I'll make sure it's the last thing you ever do if you defy me again."

I stared at him, wondering whether to let loose once again, but I quickly decided against it as Silvano stared at me pleadingly. Quickly, I turned away and allowed my feet to carry me toward the door.

"Likewise." I replied simply, trying my hardest to ignore the spite in which he spoke to me with.

_The quicker I get to know things about the depth of this crime ring, the less likely I'll mouth off. It's quite simple, as he should be able to see._

* * *

Enzo shut the door behind the two kids as they both slunk out of the room. It was easy enough to spot the insolence on the stupid girl's face and easier still to find how insulted his boss had become just by the gesture.

"Take the little shit downstairs."

Violetta stood in the shadows, quietly, as she kept watch over the unmoving body of the Star Child. As the order was commanded, she did as she was told, closing the door gently behind her and the small child in her arms. There was no mistaking that they had finally gotten their hands on him, thanks to Rossie's intel. The Star Child was the human embodiment of Paulo's dream, obviously, and to lose control over him would be a huge blow that may not be worth coming back from.

" _As for the extra weight we've got, we may as well recruit him, too. We have a minimal amount of workers in this particular place as it is."_

"Masato," Paulo allowed the quiet man's name to escape from his lips. "for my sake, you'd better talk some sense into that damn hell spawn of yours. Is there no such thing as manners in your home?"

Masato looked taken aback as Enzo audibly snickered and Rossie gave him an uncomfortable glance. The tall man took a deep breath before glancing away from his boss:

"I've tried, boss. She refuses to listen. She's stubborn."

"Tch, cheeky kid," Paulo dismissed the topic of her as he glanced at Enzo. The man stared at the closed door now, without even trying to interject into the conversation with his usual quip or two. "Enzo, what's the deal? The hell's going on with you?"

It was uncharacteristic of the unforgiving, angry man to stay silent on topics that he could easily find something to make a cruel joke out of. Instead, he stayed eerily silent and the tension in his shoulders gave Paulo a weird vibe.

" _I wonder if he's pissed because he was about to knock Masato's kid's teeth out…"_

Paulo allowed himself a smile; it was very possible. Enzo was known to be impatient and quick-tempered when shit refused to go his way… not to mention when kids like the cheeky one who had eavesdropped into the close-knit conversation they were having have the  _gall_  to  _exist_  in front of him.

"Just a little pissed, boss. They're just kids. I wouldn't expect them to know the first damn thing about what we go through and how we deal with it, much less learning that important political conversations don't concern them. Maybe we should have recruited adults instead."

"But you  _know_  why we had to recruit children," Rossie finally spoke up for once. Despite the tough outlook of his Mohawk, his eyes reflected something along the lines of pity. "They're so impressionable. Adults are ingrained in their ways already just like us, Enzo. There'd be no way to guarantee their loyalty. These kids don't know anything but school and this grind. You're the one who helped devise that plan."

Enzo grunted in agreement before opening the door in front of him.

"I'm taking off. It's too early in the morning for this shit."

Paulo watched intently as the door swung closed and Enzo's heavy footsteps echoed down the stairs beside the door.

" _Just what the hell is into him, anyway? It's unlike him to show mercy… especially toward his own ideas."_

Masato quickly bowed to Paulo and straightened up before walking calmly to the door.

"I'll be taking off as well… and boss," the man quickly turned around and ran his hand through his dark hair. "I'll have a word with my daughter tomorrow and make sure she's committed to this cause."

Without waiting for an answer, Masato allowed the door to swing closed as well. With only Rossie in the room, Paulo waved his hand in a dismissal motion. Soon enough, the boss was by himself in his office.

" _A close-knit Famiglia. That's what I've always wanted, correct? Then why am I pissing myself wondering why people refuse to follow my absolute orders?"_

* * *

"Missy! What the hell're ya thinkin', tryna mouth off to the boss like that?" Silvano hissed at me as we made our way down the steps. "Tryna get both'a us fired is what ya're tryna do!"

"That'd be nice, wouldn't it?" I cheerfully wondered. "I mean, that way, we'd actually be able to go outside without looking behind our shoulders, right?"

Silvano sighed, ignoring my logic entirely. "Missy, that ain't the point. Ya ain't gotta get spicy with ya superiors for tiny stuff, yeah."

I shrugged, brushing the whole instance off. It wasn't as if I cared about how Paulo felt about me in the first place. I just wanted to know what the hell I was signing up for, and more importantly, what my best friend was signing up for.

_I just want to know if he'll be let go or something. He shouldn't have to be dragged down to this level like me and Silvano… especially for being at the wrong place and at the wrong time._

"What do I tell him?" I wondered aloud.

"Hm?" Silvano stopped and stared at me. "What'd ya say, missy?"

I waited a moment to repeat what I said; after all, Shoichi  _had_  always told me I was  _way_  too headstrong and that I sometimes said things without thinking over if they actually needed to be said.

_He's right, though. However, I don't think I need to stop and think about this one. And the irony of it all; I hadn't even bothered to stop and think about stuff while talking to Paulo!_

"Why're ya smirking like that?" Silvano's eyebrows meshed together now, definitely confused as to my fragmented questions and answers.

"What do I tell Shoichi about us? About the Mafia? I can't just leave him in the dark about something as big as this!"

I had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, staring into space as I thought about the possibly routes my decision could take.

"Ain't gotta overthink it, yeah. I'll tell 'em for ya." Silvano had shrugged off the entire issue as if it was no problem at all.

"It's not–" I started to tell him, but he waved me off.

"But it is, missy!" Silvano tried to convince me, smiling through the tension and worry. "I'll tell 'em everything I know, just like I told ya. Maybe he'll even want to join us, yeah."

I stopped at that last sentence. Everything had jarred to a stop and my heartbeat began to thump in my neck.

"No, he can't do that."

_There's no way in hell I'd even consider it. I don't even think_ _ he'd _ _consider that!_

"He can and he shall."

I turned to see Violetta standing behind the both of us, holding what I originally thought to be a bundle of clothes, but I then realized that there was a body in the clothes she held. A child, in fact.

_Is that the kid that Shoichi was talking about?_

"I believe the boss would be most happy to welcome another child into the ranks." Violetta's kind eyes scraped across me and her son before a large smile engulfed her face. Her light eyes danced as she pushed past the two of us, handing me the child in her arms. "Make sure he gets into the cellar, the boss told me."

I nearly buckled underneath the unexpected weight of the unresponsive child, but I dared not complain.

"Mamma?" Silvano addressed Violetta just as she began to walk away. She turned to stare at him and their eyes met as Silvano said something in a language that was obviously not Japanese.

I stared at the two, dumbfounded, as Violetta pondered for her answer, but that answer was nothing short of a simple nod as she turned away and headed into a different room and closed the door.

"What'd you ask?" I snapped my head toward Silvano, who only stared at me and the child in my arms.

"Ain't ask nothin'. C'mon, ya ain't slept all night 'nd ya're gonna have one foot in ya grave all day if ya ain't start now."

Silvano hadn't even bothered to make eye contact with me before heading toward the door to the cellar. I tried my best to follow him, but the child in my arms obviously hindered my progression.

"I got 'im, missy. Open the door for me."

The weight disappeared as Silvano held the child, who only twitched in the process of me giving him to the blonde kid. I did as he said, albeit reluctantly.

_I wish I knew what the hell I was doing. I hate not knowing a damned thing. I wish I could just teleport Shoichi out of this bullshit. I hate it. I_ _ hate _ _it._

I hit the bottom step to find Shoichi mindlessly sitting on my bed until I made a sound. His head slowly turned toward us until I sighed.

"Shoichi, this might seem sudden, but I think we have something to tell you…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> What was up with Violetta's fragmented speech pattern?
> 
> Well, she's Silvano's mother and they both did not originate from Japan. I don't know if anyone remembers, but when she first appeared, Hana pointed out the same issue. Just another step I'm taking to try to make this story as in-depth and realistic as possible. I'm not being difficult on purpose, I swear!
> 
> Hana's nightmare spiel at the beginning of her segment?
> 
> Actually, this is going to be the one thing that makes this fic unique and different from the rest of the SI!OC fics. This is going to be actually amazing and I really didn't want to input it this early into the story, but I had to start somewhere. Bear with me and know that that right there was by no means random… similar stuff may happen from time-to-time and it will be the biggest mindfuck of all time.
> 
> Hana is nervous about law enforcement? I thought she wanted to be a policewoman!
> 
> Nothing like classic me inserting the "fears" thing that I alluded to in the first chapter. I realize I had carried it out with guns so far into the story, so I thought now was the appropriate time to approach this next installment. Imagine wanting to be something all your life and then realizing that in one instant, it will never happen because that ideal is the exact thing that may just be your demise. More to come, definitely. Keepin' it fresh.
> 
> Did Hana and Shoichi seriously cry after seeing each other again? Seriously?
> 
> Yeah, they did! I'm sure if your best friend went missing and you were scared shitless, you'd cry when you found out they were alive and well after thinking they were actually dead… and the same on Hana's side of this one! I have to explain stuff like this because people will tell me (and they have!) that my characters are weak for showing emotion when, in fact, they are actually human beings that I am trying to make as realistic as KHR will allow me… rather than some other characters that I have observed in my writing days.
> 
> Are there going to be pairings in this story?
> 
> Believe it or not, that's a toss-up. I know lots of people don't read stories if there's no pairings/get really frustrated when they think there's romantic connections when it may just be friendship and I kinda don't wanna deal with that. On the other hand, me being aromantic, I don't want pairings. See where I'm coming from? I'll think about it. It'd definitely make up for my lack of humor because I'm not a funny person and it sucks.
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> I put the first scene in there because literally right after I typed up the last chapter, I realized I could have done it from Violetta/Enzo/Rossie's POV and I was absolutely pissed with myself because that could have been so perfect… so I decided to open with it. I want everyone to know their characters before everything that's going to happen happens.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	16. Daisy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, revelations, explanations, paranoid ramblings, and also family matters.

_ Flashback: _

_I wish I knew what the hell I was doing. I hate not knowing a damned thing. I wish I could just teleport Shoichi out of this bullshit. I hate it. I hate it._

_I hit the bottom step to find Shoichi mindlessly sitting on my bed until I made a sound. His head slowly turned toward us until I sighed._

_“Shoichi, this might seem sudden, but I think we have something to tell you…”_

* * *

Chapter Sixteen: Daisy

The name “daisy” comes from "day's eye" because the flower is only open during the day and closes up at night. A nickname for it is "the thunderflower" since it blooms in the summer when thundershowers are common. In addition, the daisy is believed to keep away lightning. A common name in England for the flower is “bruisewort” since the crushed leaves could be used for soothing bruised or chapped skin.

_Meaning:_ _“I will never tell”, loyal love, and/or innocence._

* * *

Regardless of Silvano’s offer to explain everything for me, I told Shoichi everything that I knew from top to bottom.

I told him about the Mafia.

I told him about my kidnapping.

I told him about Paulo, about Rossie, about Enzo, and even about Silvano and Violetta.

Hell, I’d even told him about the drug deal that I had been forced to do by Paulo’s orders along with Silvano just yesterday.

Even though I begged my best friend to stop me mid-sentence and ask a well-deserved question or say something that would remind me that the Mafia was not something that I should willfully be involved in… but he said nothing. Not a single word came from his mouth until I finished my spiel.

“Is that true?”

My eyebrows furrowed as he asked such an innocent, subject-dodging question. It _was_ true, but the amount of time within the last week that I had wished it wasn’t held me back from giving Shoichi a straight answer.

“’Course it’s true,” Silvano filled in for me when he realized that I didn’t have a straight answer. He placed the child that he held in his arms on his own bed before sitting down at the opposite end and dipping his head backward as if to lounge. “We’ve been doin’ this stuff the whole time, yeah. If ya’re a snitch, though, gotta say I’m gonna have to–”

“Silvano,” I warned him quickly, but Shoichi hardly seemed phased. If anything, the brightness in his eyes intensified.

“To think that you were dragged into all of this, Hana… and you’re still alive!” It was as if we were fireworks at a festival to Shoichi; the disbelieving gaze that he placed on me was almost comforting.

My best friend knew nothing of how severe the situation was, even though I had just told him every detail.

_Or maybe, he’s in denial._

I stopped the already half-assed smile from appearing anything near genuine.

_If I smile like it’s okay, he’ll think it’s okay. It’s not okay._

It was a slow moment before a twitch caught my eye and I turned toward the small body beside Silvano. A head with two brilliant brown eyes stared back at me and I couldn’t even get a word out before the child sat up and stared around the darkened cellar. He spotted Silvano first and allowed his gaze to wander to me again.

Goosebumps dotted my skin as the child’s eyes lit up at the sight of my face, but he ultimately rolled out of the bed and hurried to my best friend’ side.

“Shoichi–nii!”

I exchanged a quick glance with Silvano as the young boy and Shoichi smiled at each other, but I tried to ignore the honorific that the child had given him.

_How did he become a brother figure, anyway?_

“Shoichi–nii, where are we? Why can’t we go home?”

I stole a longer glance at Silvano, hoping he would jump in for me or something, but he only shrugged off my gaze as if he never even noticed my silent plea for help.

_How the hell am I supposed to explain to the kid that we can’t leave? There’s no way out anymore._

“I’m not… sure,” Shoichi concluded slowly before allowing his eyes to wander toward the door. “I don’t even have my glasses, so I can’t really see in the first place.”

To my surprise, the boy laughed lightheartedly. Despite the tension in the air that, while not directed toward me, I could feel as if I had caused it, the child continued to laugh. Whoever this kid was, I decided, he was a strong one for someone so young.

“Hm? Is she the one in the picture, Shoichi–nii?” All–too–suddenly, a small finger pointed toward me.

_What picture is this kid talking about? Is it the one that Shoichi has in his room of us at the movie theatre?_

“Yes, Fuuta. This is Hana, my best friend.” I stared at the child as his eyes glossed over me. “She might be scary on the outside, but not so much once you get to know her.”

Fuuta’s face hardly changed as he took me in and the hair on my arms seemed to stand straight up.

_I’m getting the creepiest vibe from him… I’m not a huge fan of children as it is, but there’s something off here._

I had learned to trust my gut instinct within the time that I had spent here, especially with people like my father and Silvano around, but I wasn’t sure why it was acting up now. Fuuta, the child in front of me, was only a child… from what I knew, at least. Paulo seemed to think something completely different.

Silvano even appeared to be misplaced by the aura of this child as he cupped his chin in his palm before speaking softly, apparently to himself:

“I ain’t have the slightest idea why they hadda bring a kid ‘ere.” I could see the confusion painted on his face as he continued speaking before I had a chance to question the thought he presented. “What the hell’s Paulo thinkin’?”

What _was_ he thinking?

According to my stellar eavesdropping skills, I found that Paulo needed either this kid or my best friend for _something_ , but to hell if I could pinpoint what it was from an outsider’s point of view.

“Hana,” Shoichi had called my name as Fuuta stared intently at me. “Do you think we’ll be able to get out of here? I mean… I can’t stay here forever; my mom will kill me… and everyone’s worried about y–”

“Missy can’t leave.” Silvano’s sentence was an answer to every question that Shoichi could have asked.

_I’m stuck here. Forever. I’ll never see my mom again. Kyoko won’t be able to take me to that little cake shop that she loves anymore._

The thoughts that haunted me deep down had finally begun to surface as Shoichi was exposed to the possibility of the same fate. He couldn’t be stuck here with nowhere else to go. He _couldn’t_ have the same risks and potential to be arrested as I.

“I ain’t have the slightest idea ‘bout yaself, but all I know is that missy can’t leave.” Silvano’s quiet voice reinforced itself before I could explain myself. “Her daddy put ‘er in here ‘nd he ain’t want her to go back.”

“So… he _did_ kidnap you, didn’t he? It’s true?” Shoichi had only begun to understand the bulk of what my disappearance was based on. “I didn’t think that something like that would happen here…”

“Regardless,” I longed to get off of the subject of my father, turning my attention to the child that stood beside my best friend. “I don’t see why the hell Paulo decided to bring a little kid into this.”

His large brown eyes seemed peaceful and lacked the slightest sign that he had any conflicting thoughts on his mind. Though, swimming through thoughts of his new situation seemed to bore him as he quickly answered my statement:

“I knew it was going to happen.” Genuine regret passed through Fuuta’s face before he shook his head lightly. “They just want to use me just like everyone else. I’m just a toy that they’ve been looking for.”

My eyebrows crinkled as I wondered what the hell he was talking about. Who were _“they”?_ What did they want with a little kid like Fuuta?

“How old even are you?” I asked, feeling my curiosity suddenly spike.

_I don’t even care what he has to say. I just have to know what makes him so important that he got Shoichi captured alongside of him._

“Eleven.”

_The fuck does Paulo want with an eleven-year-old?_

I struggled to put together the pieces as the child slowly sank onto the ground. I didn’t think much of it until his shoulders began to quake as he reached for his eyes.

“…didn’t ask… for this… my gift isn’t… a toy…”

His sobs became almost incoherent as Shoichi gently knelt next to the disturbed child before glancing back up at Silvano and I, speaking quietly before rubbing the child’s back soothingly.

“I don’t think I know what’s going on for sure, but he _did_ know that this was going to happen. He must have.”

My best friend declined to say more as he focused on comforting Fuuta and Silvano turned to me with confusion splayed across his face.

“I ain’t even know much ‘bout this, missy. I know the boss wants ‘im, but I ain’t know nothin’ ‘bout why or for what. Mamma won’t tell me nothin’ if she knows anything. Looks like only the kid knows what he can do.”

_I’ll see what I can do and ask my father and Paulo about him. Not only is he eleven years old, but he’s a super fucking weird eleven-year-old, to boot._

“Aight,” Silvano slapped his hands together aimlessly. “it’s early in the mornin’ and if ya wanna get some sleep, we’ve got maybe an hour or so before we gotta get up ‘nd work.”

I longed to relent and rest my head for the third time tonight, but I still felt as if there was something I needed to do… something about the crying child that unnerved me to the point that I almost didn’t want to sleep in this room with him around.

“I’m going to go upstairs. I’m not tired.”

_I have to find out what the hell Paulo wants with my best friend and Fuuta. Shoichi doesn’t deserve to be stuck here because of a mistake or something. I can’t let that happen to him._

* * *

Whatever Silvano had said to me after my decision had fallen on deaf ears as I quietly opened the cellar door to the upstairs world. The sun faintly glimmered into the home and it was much quieter and peaceful when everyone seemed to be away. The whisper of my thoughts faded as I immediately set my sights for Paulo’s office.

_Maybe I’ll get through to him when he’s alone and not in the middle of something. I’ll get the answer out of him even if I have to pry it from him. Shoichi shouldn’t have to deal with the bullshit that I have to put up with and I’m not gonna stand here and let him do this shit. When I’m the boss of this place, I’m going to make sure none of my friends get hurt by this enterprise. I’ll stake my life on it!_

The thought of wanting to be in Paulo’s place simmered and fell when I thought about it, briefly pausing before ascending the stairs. I wanted to chase power in the world, just like Byakuran had told me to do. I had tried my best to keep my grades high and my taste for romantic relationships low. I had done everything that would ensure making my way to the top. Instead, I was sitting here smack in the middle of the rock-bottom of the underworld; the Mafia.

_I wanted to make an honest living, but this makes much more sense. I can seize everything from being underground. I just hope none of my friends take part in it._

“Are you looking for something, Hana?” My father stood at a halfway point on the stairs before frowning when his gaze met my face. “I would have thought that you were catching up on your sleep. I hear you’ve had a tough evening.”

My nostril twitched at the sight of my father’s aging face. He was only in my way. I wanted nothing to do with him. He’d already proven that we don’t need each other, so that was the way that I intended to live.

“So? I have to talk to Paulo.”

“For what?” My father asked quietly, obviously trying his best to keep his voice down. “The boss is asleep… and you’d do well to address him with that title, Hana. He’s had a word with me about your disrespectful tone.”

I scoffed lightly; what did _he_ care about how I treated a man who only seemed to care about himself?

“And?” I challenged him, trying my best to keep my voice low as well. “What I have to ask him is none of your business. Since when did you start taking an interest in _me_ , anyway? You left me and mom in the dust just because you enjoyed your “job” more than your own family. Your worth to me is equal to whatever amount is on that weekly payout you mail to mom so we can buy our groceries and pay our bills.”

That seemed to get my father as he descended toward me. The scowl on his face was plain and I briefly regretted my own words until I realized that I had finally spoken the truth to his face. Not a single word of what I had said was sugarcoated… or even restrained for that matter.

“I don’t think you understand a damn _thing_ ,” he scrambled for a hold on my arm as he pulled me toward him so I could get a good look at his face. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to. I did this because I _had_ to. Paulo, _our_ boss, is an old friend of mine. I owe too much to him to leave. He gave me this job and he made sure that I’m paid enough to support both you and your mother. I made _sure_ to provide as much as I could for you. You owe me _respect_.”

“I owe you _nothing_ ,” I shot back as I pulled away. “You never even apologized to her. You kidnapped me. If anything, you owe _both_ of us a solid, real apology.”

_But I don’t think you’re capable of giving us one._

I thought about saying that aloud, but maybe… I hoped that it was false, so I refrained. I wanted to be sure that my father could actually apologize to both my mother and I for what he’d done to us and how he had ruined the both of us.

The tension between the two of us heightened for a moment after the last word had left my lips, but it slowly subsided as he let go of me and squinted his eyes before speaking again:

“Fine. Fucking fine. I’m getting the car.”

_The car? The hell does that have to do with me?_

I almost had time to protest, but the strict glare that he shot me was enough for me to realize he did not intend on driving that car around by himself. I hesitated for a moment, staring back at the stairs. If only I could make it a couple of steps upward and avoid him…

“Hana, let’s go. You’re coming with me.”

The hair on my arms stood straight up as I recognized the words that he had spoken to me the day of my kidnapping. Although my father was obviously sober now, I couldn’t forget the terror that I had faced in such a simple situation. My mouth slowly dried as I fought for a reason why I couldn’t go with him, but I realized that there was nothing I could say that could get me out of this.

Without another word of protest, I obliged and followed my father out of the home, briefly looking back to see nothing but the sun coming through the cracks in the curtains and shutters to brighten up the dreary atmosphere… but it hadn’t helped in the slightest.

* * *

I got into the car’s front seat (after unsuccessfully trying to sit as far away from this man as possible, he had demanded that I sit in the front) and my father floored the pedal as we screeched out of the driveway. I held in any sound that I might have hoped to make before finally relaxing when we hit a red light.

“Aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?”

The sourness in his voice was unmistakable as I almost declined to answer.

“No,” I chose my words carefully as I tugged at my brown locks in hope for some comfort. “I’m not sure I even want to know.”

_If you give him little reason to be angry, maybe you’ll be able to get away from him easier. I guess that’s the only logic that ever worked back in the day._

I stuck to my guns as my father floored it again when the light suddenly turned green and we sped by every other pedestrian vehicle.

“What if there’s a cop?” I stammered, breaking my vow of silence for even just a moment.

“Fuck the police,” my father replied before I could interject with another question or statement. “They won’t catch me. We’re doing something too important to get pulled over for.”

_I’m sure the police know that! They’ll totally let you off the hook for obviously speeding and they completely won’t arrest you on the spot as the number one suspect in my disappearance case! Futzing around is just way too important for that!_

My sarcasm rambled in my head as we seemed to go even faster than the police chases I used to watch on TV when I wasn’t in cahoots with the underground enterprise that is the drug trafficking mob.

I shut my eyes for the remainder of the ride, only opening them when we came to a stop or when my father would swear at someone or himself… until we made a rather-abrupt stop that sent my conscience rolling into next century. 

“Alright, we’re here.” My eyes cracked open and I could hardly believe what I was seeing as my father slowly made his way out of the car and locked it at the same time. “There doesn’t seem to be any police presence right now, which is just great. Now, if they could keep that up for an hour or so…”

I was staring straight at my home again; the very place that Silvano had taken me just five hours prior in the dead of night. I was staring back at the memories that I had so openly denied and the place that I decided to pursue the Mafia as my goal in life.

_Why?_

I looked at my father for an explanation, but the anger that was already showing in the horizon of his thought process had begun to surface once more.

“Get the hell out of the car! If anyone sees us, we’re _both_ fucked! Don’t you want to see your mother again?”

_Ain’t ya wanna see ya momma, missy?_

Silvano’s voice echoed in my head as I slowly reached for my seatbelt. Maybe if I saw my mom again, I’d be repulsed from the enticing idea of running this mob. Maybe I would never want to even think about having anything to do with Paulo’s crazy ass and I would have _some_ desire to make it home and live an honest life.

I finally pulled off my seatbelt before sliding out of the car, but not before my father swore at me and grabbed my arm.

“Shit,” I swore faintly as his grip tightened the closer we got to the door. We hadn’t bothered with any sort of cover-up disguises, so if one of my neighbors happened to look out of their window, we would be compromised. “What if she calls the police the moment she sees you?”

The question wasn’t meant to be asked, but I had said it anyway. It was my worst fear; my mom doing something spontaneously without giving either of us a chance to tell her what was going on.

“I’ll strangle the bitch myself if she even goes _near_ the damn phone,” my father’s grip tightened as we rounded the corner, past the bushes and Silvano and I had snuck through last night to get to the window. “Besides, we’re not staying.”

I felt a weight drop in my chest. I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, he had thought about giving me back to my mother. If I could be taken away from this toxic world, I wouldn’t be thinking such irrational things.

_What the hell am I thinking, trying to become the leader of a mob that I never wanted to be a part of in the first place? To hell if that’ll ever happen. I might as well find some way out before this gets out of hand._

My father jiggled the door handle, and just when I thought that he would actually have to sit on the porch and ring the doorbell, the door cracked open with the force that he exerted.

I stared at my still-darkened home before realizing quickly that something was wrong. My home, like I had noticed last night, did not smell the way I remembered it. I hadn’t dwelled on it, but the dirty smell was so unfamiliar that I almost double-checked the address and the location of the home that we were in.

_Is he sure that my mom will even listen to him? I don’t want to be here if another fight breaks out between them… and what if the police decide to show up to check on my mom? What will the both of us do, then?_

All escape routes were noted mentally as my father finally let go of me and closed the door behind us. Despite it being around six in the morning and my mother typically being a morning person, all of the lights remained out.

I was left to my own devices as my father went searching for my mother, and I wandered into the dining room where Silvano and I had snuck in. The window was still cracked open, and I bent down to close it before hearing a shriek.

My mind went blank when I hurried into the open, only to find my mom holding something toward my father in a seemingly threatened manner.

“Masato, w–what the hell do you want?” Unlike the woman I had seen and looked up to once upon a time, this woman’s face was stained with obvious fear. The sleep in her eyes was evident, but it hardly looked like restful sleep as my father flinched away from her outstretched arms. “Where is my daughter, Masato? What the hell’d you do with her?”

“Akahana, why are you pointing that thing at me?” I stopped when my father stared calmly at the knife that was held toward his face. “Why do you have it near our bed?”

The crazed look in my mother’s eyes scared me as I forced myself to step in-between the two of them.

“Mom,” my throat was dry as I attempted to speak, but I cleared it and her gaze slowly turned to me. “Mom, I’m home.”

I’m not sure what I expected after that; whether it was for her to put the knife down and hug me, for her to tell me how much she missed me… I’m not sure what I wanted out of the situation at hand. Whatever I expected, though, it was not for my heart to jump to my throat as that knife hit the bedroom wall beside my head.

“Hana, where the _hell_ have you been?”

My lips moved to respond, but I found no means to do so as my eyes wandered toward the knife that now stuck out of the wall. I could see that it was one of our kitchen knives, but that wasn’t the extent of the case.

_She… threw it at me. She could have killed me._

“Akahana, she’s been with me.” My father filled in the void that my silence created, and I noticed how matted my mother’s hair was. I could see the bags under her eyes beginning to turn an unsavory purple hue and I could see two bottles of both pain and sleep medications on her nightstand. “Hana is alright and alive, Akahana.”

I slowly stepped away from the wall before looking back and feeling my heart drop down to my stomach.

_Did she throw that at me… because she doesn’t want me around anymore? Does she wish I actually was dead?_

Even Shoichi’s words about how he spent every waking moment with my mother didn’t lessen my conviction to the thought. I had no idea what state my mother would have been in if I ever had the opportunity to come back to my own home and talk to her, but this wasn’t at all what I expected.

“Shoichi is missing as of last night, too,” my mother relented as she let her hand wander to her head and she kicked my father away when he tried to reach out to her. “They all think _I_ had something to do with it because of how close the two of you were! The news outlets will be covering it sometime soon… I’ll never be able to live a normal life again… I quit my job because of it! If I run out of money, maybe I’ll stop being able to support myself…”

_She’s giving up._

I could hear it in her voice. As much as I wanted to deny it, it was all _my_ fault. No, it was my father’s fault.

My fists balled up as I thought about it.

_He’s ruined everything for mom and I. Now, he’s reduced her to this._

My mom _loved_ her job. She used to work overtime simply because she enjoyed working at her desk with her oh-so-important papers. She would email me after school got out to tell me that she wouldn’t be home because she needed to finish the rest of her work before she left the office, often taking until late at night to even _think_ about coming home. It used to bother me when I was younger, sure, but I never said anything because I knew that it was simply filling a hole in her that I alone couldn’t fix. I would never be able to compete with my father to make her feel better, and I was third behind her job. I dealt with it silently because  I knew that while she loved me, there was a bigger, better spot in her heart for my father and I could never live up to it. She loved that job because it filled her with joy, something that my father _should_ have been doing the whole damn time. She worked so hard _for_ _him_.

That alone made the whole situation so far from “okay” that I could have said it all aloud, but I refrained. Regardless of how I felt around my mother, I always refrained from talking about my own issues and how _I_ felt because it paled in comparison to how she felt about having my father constantly away doing who-knows-what with his “job” that he lied to the both of us about.

_Is that why we’re here? So he can finally tell mom the truth? Am I only here to vouch that what he says is true?_

“Akahana–” My father’s large hand stretched toward her, but she swatted him away. “Leave me! Leave me! If y–you’re going to lie and say that you haven’t been living a double life, just leave me!”

I stiffened at the same time my father did and my hands began to wring. Did she have any idea about the life that my father led before dragging me into it? My legs knocked together as I fought to stay upright.

“Double life?” My father tilted his head in confusion, but my mom’s brown hair sprawled about her shoulders even more haphazardly than before as she flailed in his general direction from her perch on their bed.

“Y–you’ve been cheating on me! Y–you’re trying to integrate Hana into your new family and l–leave me cold and alone!”

I stepped forward to immediately deny it, but the laughter of my father masked my intent to deliver the real issue.

“Akahana, you think I’ve been sneaking around with other women? You’re so wrong that I don’t even know how to respond!”

The crazed scowl that was portrayed on my mother’s face slowly softened up as I stared at her confused face and walked forward. Her accusing stare send me back a step.

“Hana, is he lying to me? Who’s the other woman?”

I shook my head quickly, trying not to seem like there was a delay in my thought.

“N–no, there’s no other woman, mom. I promise!”

The words from me seemed to suffice as her dark eyes shot back to my father.

“Then… why did you take Hana?”

I stared at my father, wondering what the hell he would say, but he sat there in silence before stroking my mother’s pale hands as she finally elected to let him touch her.

“Akahana… I took her because I needed her. _We_ needed her, back at my job–”

“What does your job have to do with our daughter, Masato? You’re not selling her off, are you?”

I was so taken aback by my mom’s broken response that I almost made a sound, but it was covered up by my father’s calm laughter.

“No, Akahana! I have to tell you something, though. My job isn’t as simple as I previously made it out to be… I… I’m in the Mafia.”

* * *

I listened to my father tell my increasingly distraught mother how he had come to be part of the Mafia, a story that he never bothered to tell me. Apparently, he and Paulo used to work together when my father was in Italy for the real job he used to have until recent. Realizing that Paulo’s small proposal about furthering his own business would leave himself with a larger check, my father decided to leave that job and pursue the world that Paulo had proposed; the Todd Famiglia. They had relocated to Japan, though, after a few mishaps in their plans and realizing that the drug market would be much more attainable here.

My father went on to explain why I was needed in this enterprise and why I had no choice but to stay, including the risks that would run if I ever decided to leave.

“She’ll be shot and killed, Akahana,” his voice had lowered to a low rumble. “The last thing I want is for her life to be over. I have no choice but to keep her here with me and work for him.”

My mother was slowly unravelling; her already-bloodshot eyes grew even more so and her lithe body had begun to shake with every sentence out of my father’s mouth. I had forced myself to stay on the outside of the conversation, listening in from a few paces away.

“Masato, y–you’ve been hurting people, haven’t you?” Her voice quaked as my father’s head jerked backward when she lashed out at him. “Don’t tell me… don’t tell me y–you’ve… _killed_ someone…”

I let my eyes wander to my father, expecting him to immediately say that he hadn’t killed _anyone_. That’s not what _this_ kind of Mafia was like, was it? We were only in existence to sell drugs and make money. We didn’t _have_ to kill anyone, did we?

Instead, I watched my father’s eyes cloud with emotion and I took a small step back.

_He can’t lie to her._

Even though my father was known to be unpredictable, I could see it in his eyes that whatever he had done that he couldn’t find it within himself to tell her, he regretted it. Whatever it may have been, he never wanted it to happen.

_If only he felt that way about his entire life. Maybe we would have a better relationship if he was a better person overall._

My mother began to cry hysterically when my father reached out to pat her face, leaving his hand outstretched and cold.

“We’ve been living on blood money this whole time! A–and I bet you made Hana kill someone, too, didn’t you? You’ve ruined her!”

Her accusing stare tore through me as I longed for my own tears to come. I wanted my mother back. Not this heap of paranoia and fear.

“N–no,” I stared at my mother’s hardening face. “I wouldn’t kill anyone, mom… I wouldn’t… you _know_ I couldn’t kill anyone…”

I had begun to ramble until my voice slowly stopped coming out when I realized that the unbreakable stare that she stuck me with through her tears came from one thing alone: distrust.

_She doesn’t believe me! She thinks I’m just like him… I’m nothing like him… I want nothing to do with him._

My father glanced at me and nodded as he turned back to my inconsolable mother. She had continued to cry and my father leaned down to her ear and whispered something before standing and addressing her once again:

“Akahana, I know you might not want to, but I wouldn’t call the police if I were you. It won’t only land all of us in a bad place, but you might be subject to more judgment. Besides, I’ll bring Hana back to see you some–”

“No,” my mother denied immediately, waving him away with her small hands. “I don’t want that… I _don’t_ want that…”

With that, my father stood and motioned me toward the door.

“Come on, Hana. Let’s go. I’ll bring you back another time.”

I took one last look at my mother, who refused to meet my eyes. The fatigue in her demeanor gave me nothing to say goodbye to, and I turned around without looking back.

_She wants nothing to do with me. She thinks I’m in on this with him… she thinks I had some sort of choice. I had no choice… but I don’t think she understands that. She’ll never understand that._

* * *

The drive home was short and sweet as neither of us spoke to the other. I was stuck in my own thoughts regardless. I had hoped for my mother to say something that would deter me from thinking about seriously joining and collaborating with the mob. While she pointed out that there was killing and death, it did nothing for me and I shamed myself for that.

_If I help Paulo’s cause, maybe I can prevent harm from ever coming to anyone._

The thought, from the outside, seemed naïve. Of course, harm would come to people no matter what the hell I decided to do. However, I could do my best to prevent any of it from happening to the people I worked with and the people I cared about.

_It’s a stretch, but I can always try it._

When we arrived back at the rickety-looking mansion, my father stopped the car and turned to me.

“Whatever you ask Paulo, try not to get on his bad side. Whatever you say reflects on me, too.”

I couldn’t find it in myself to answer him as I slithered out of the car myself, glancing behind me for any police presence like Silvano had taught me.

_To hell if I care what he thinks of his own reputation. I don’t exist for him to look better._

I closed the door behind the both of us and my father disappeared behind the stairs, probably going toward his own room. I almost wanted to ask him about mom and what was going on between the two of them; if they were going to get that divorce I always suspected. I couldn’t though, knowing that even if I could ask him, I didn’t really want to know the answer.

_I can’t keep dwelling on him. He’s fucked me over so many times that he shouldn’t matter to me. Mom wouldn’t hate me if it wasn’t for him._

_Did_ she hate me? Is that the emotion that I saw emitting from her small, uncared for being?

The stairs stood before me once again and I hesitated before taking the first step, but when I did, I finally had my thoughts in order… and no man like Paulo was going to stop me. I approached his office door, but when I reached out to knock, the door swung open and I was met with the sharp eyes of my supposed “boss”.

“Out for another eavesdropping mission, I see.” Paulo’s eyes closed briefly as I watched irritation flood from him. “You might be Masato’s kid, but just because your lineage is with him is no reason to think that you can act however you want.”

Indignant as I was, I collected myself before speaking.

“I’m not eavesdropping. I wanted to talk to you.” My voice sounded dry again, and in wake of everything that had just happened, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. “I have a couple of questions.”

“Whatever you’ve got to say, it’d better be able to wait about seven hours,” Paulo briefly laughed, but I’m not really sure if it was because he was amused or if he was making fun of me… maybe it was some sick combination of both. “I haven’t slept since the dawn of time and I’ll be damned if anything’s keeping me from me and my bed.”

“Damned you are, then,” I shot back and gestured toward his desk behind him. “It won’t take very long and it’s already waited long enough.”

“Rude as you are, girl, the way that you mirror your father is almost amusing.” Paulo had managed to smirk as I showed the slightest amount of distaste. “Fine, since you insist… and it better not be a waste of my damn time, either.”

The man stepped back into his office and I shut the door behind myself as I finally got a good look of the room. It was a pale room with little inside of it and the only thing inside of the office that was notable were two chairs and papers splayed across the desk.

“Take a seat,” Paulo instructed me as he took his own seat and cradled his chin in his hand. “I hope you’re not thinking about leaving the operation.”

“What? No,” I immediately denied the prospect of that when I plopped down in the wooden chair across from the desk. “I mean, it’s not like I have much of a choice, anyway. I’ll be shot and killed if I try.”

Paulo surprisingly laughed at my commentary before turning serious once again, stroking the stubble of hair on his chin.

“Ha, so Masato told you what’ll happen if you leave? Looks like he got a little desperate to keep you around.”

The questions I had in my mind burned until I let myself finally say what the hell was on my mind:

“Why did you bring Shoichi here?”

“Shoichi?” Paulo tilted his head and I let my tongue get the best of me: “The red-headed kid that you so–righteously kidnapped. That one. Why is he here?”

“What–do you dislike him for some reason? Is he too _quiet_ for you or some shit?”

“No,” I quickly denied. “He–he’s my best friend. I was just wondering why he would be subject to this way of life out of coincidence.”

My confidence had begun to waver as Paulo continued to stare at me without an answer until he finally took a deep breath and glanced toward the door.

“At least your question wasn’t a waste of my damn time. At any rate, I figured that we needed more hands in the business, so I took my opportunity as it came to me.”

_How can he just blatantly say that he’s toying with my best friend’s life?_

“Don’t get the wrong idea, kid,” Paulo quickly filled in the silence. “It’s not the red-headed kid we’re after. It was the kid he was with.”

_Kid he was with…?_

“Fuuta?” The brown-haired child’s name escaped from my lips, much to Paulo’s surprise.

“Is that his name? I know him by another…”

“What the hell do you want with an eleven-year-old kid?” I felt myself begin to unhinge. “There’s no reason for you to want anything to do with him!”

“Don’t give me that tone, girl,” Paulo warned me as he yawned and kept his composure. “He’s not the eleven-year-old that you think he is. He’s the key to my success, and in turn, yours.”

“How? What the hell is an eleven-year-old going to do that will somehow make you rich and famous?”

Even though I wanted to go into this with strategy, I couldn’t seem to find the will to play nice anymore. It wasn’t just me whose life was now ruined. It was everyone involved. Shoichi, Fuuta… and even Silvano, who had told me he’d been stuck here since he was born.  

“Bah, forget it,” Paulo suddenly waved me away, pointing toward the door. “If I tell you, you’ll just have more reason to spite me. Get out of my office.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but I found that there was nothing I could say. I wanted to help Fuuta and Shoichi to get them out of this way of life, but it was clear that Paulo had no intention of letting them go.

I did relent and stand up when I was told, finally feeling the significance of my day. Not only had I found out today that my mom harbored extreme dislike for me and my father alike, my father was a murderer, and that Paulo was a certified kidnapper… but my best friend and a harmless eleven-year-old boy that I had just met were both sucked into the Mafia alongside of me.

_There’s nothing I can do to stop it._

“However, Kurokawa,” Paulo had finally addressed me by my surname, rather than the usual disrespectful “girl” or “kid”. “Don’t blame yourself for your losses.”

“You’re right,” I laughed half-heartedly. “I’ll blame you.”

“Heh,” Paulo had stood up as well, probably heading to bed. “I’m not a fan of your shitty attitude, personally… but you seem to be competent to understand my goals, just like your father.”

I didn’t want to dwell on what he meant as he gestured toward the door and I took a moment to reflect on my super shitty day before finally addressing him for who he was:

“I’ll try my best to understand your reasoning, boss,” I nodded in his general direction before making my exit. “But don’t get it twisted. I’m not bowing to your every move.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> So, what are your plans for Fuuta?
> 
> Understandable question; it doesn’t seem like much right now (not to mention how difficult he is to write) but I do have large-scale plans for this child and there is a reason why he is acting the way he does. I have a theory as to why it comes out creepy now; most children that I have come into contact with are very open to expressing thoughts and emotions… and the ones who hide stuff are not… but can’t you tell a child is bursting with knowledge and thoughts even when they refuse to say anything? Their acting skills aren’t nearly as refined as an adult’s are, so it might come off as a little sketchy. I dunno; that’s just me.
> 
> What the hell would make Masato and Hana even make their presence known to the outside world when hiding is all they have?
> 
> It might have seemed like my hopeless attempt to create dramatic stuff in this story, but it really was not. Regardless of the mafia business and how dangerous it is, even Masato would probably agree that Akahana has a right to know that her daughter is still alive. As for not telling her immediately, I do believe he kidnapped her on impulse in that chapter (the liquor on his breath explains that) and that if he had immediately blabbed about it that the authorities were more likely to be contacted and the whole operation would have been ruined. While it looked like impulse, it was actually well-versed and thought out by Masato himself (give or take his drunken escapade) and seems to have worked quite well.
> 
> Paulo’s being awful nice to Hana… especially after last chapter. Why is that?
> 
> It might be just the deep author-ness in me talking here, but I think that even though he thinks that she needs an attitude adjustment, she could be a promising Mafioso.
> 
> Is Hana going to get anything… special? Like, for example, how some characters have Intuition (Tsuna)?
> 
> It’s funny that you ask, because I searched for hours on the Internet for something that could put Hana on the same scale as some other characters without making her overpowered (even though I have another idea that will send heads rolling because it’s nuts but it has to be done that will seem overpowered… but I’ll nerf it) and I did manage to find one. It’s not overpowered in the slightest and I think it goes well with Hana’s character. I hope to introduce it soon.
> 
> Author’s Notes:
> 
> I’m completely comfortable with where we’re headed with this story because I think the pace I’m putting it at, while a bit on the slower side, will definitely be worth it in the end.
> 
> Thanks for reading (if you did) and please leave a review on my progress (if you can)!
> 
> ~Teafully~


	17. Valerian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, drugs, weapons, and a ton of your boy Fuuta (who I honestly want to destroy).

_ Flashback: _

_“However, Kurokawa,” Paulo had finally addressed me by my surname, rather than the usual disrespectful “girl” or “kid”. “Don’t blame yourself for your losses.”_

_“You’re right,” I laughed half-heartedly. “I’ll blame you.”_

_“Heh,” Paulo had stood up as well, probably heading to bed. “I’m not a fan of your shitty attitude, personally… but you seem to be competent to understand my goals, just like your father.”_

_I didn’t want to dwell on what he meant as he gestured toward the door and I took a moment to reflect on my super shitty day before finally addressing him for who he was:_

_“I’ll try my best to understand your reasoning, boss,” I nodded in his general direction before making my exit. “But don’t get it twisted. I’m not bowing to your every move.”_

* * *

Chapter Seventeen: Valerian

_Native of Europe, Valerian grows in damp woods, roadsides, and riversides. It was known as the “all-heal” plant in medieval times, which comes from the Latin word “valere” meaning to “be well.” It has a spreading head of whitish flowers. It also has an unpleasant smell, but it is known for the relaxing effect it has on the body. An interesting fact is that it was also sprinkled around the floor area of two people arguing to induce peace and calm and it was put into love pillows and hung above doors to guard against evil. The Pied Piper of Hamlyn had a pocket full of this when he lured the rats away into the water. Rats, cats, and horses are supposedly attracted to the plant and it is thought to arouse amorous feelings in humans. Its hairy root is used for medicinal purposes as a sedative._

_ Meaning: _ _be well, accommodating disposition, and/or consideration._

* * *

I stared intently at the newspaper that sat upon the bed beside me. It’d been only a day since my dreaded encounter with my mother and my brief meeting with Paulo. All I had done was mull over what I had done to receive so much hate from the woman that, only two weeks ago, had loved me without question.

The headline read **Search Expands for Namimori Teens** and I almost wanted to find some way to tell them to stop wasting their time.

_Even if they did find Shoichi and I, there’s nothing that I can hope to go back to. _

Thoughts swirled in my mind of my mother’s genuinely-caring attitude and I wondered where it’d gone.

_I wish this shit hadn’t ever happened._

“Aye, Ecchi, what do ya like to do for fun?” Silvano’s mildly-interested voice bled into my perception.

He sat at the rather-large table in the open room, pulling up a dusty chair to sit beside Shoichi, who naturally scooted away from him.

“I… I like to study up on Chemistry and Physics…”

“How borin’ can ya get? ‘Least missy could hold a conversation that ain’t borin’ as hell… ‘nd after yesterday, I ain’t know how ya can even speak to me like that.”

Fuuta sat across from Shoichi, absentmindedly drawing imaginary objects onto the table with his finger. According to that child, while I spent the rest of the day cleaning and moping around, Silvano and Shoichi had been forced on a drug dealing expedition that included Silvano laughing and Shoichi in tears. As for specifics, I had only learned of Shoichi approaching the buyers and blindly stumbling to them without a clue. The way that Fuuta had described it, Silvano had to drag Shoichi’s sorry ass away before he got himself into a sticky situation.

_The lack of his damned glasses could have gotten him killed._

I glared in their general direction; while I had informed them of my own problems, it hadn’t seemed to warrant a single idea as to my worth in the whole operation. I hated to admit it, but being a woman in anything related to crime was not fun in any sense.

_ I’m _ _the one who gets stuck cleaning up messes! That one deal that I was allowed to go on was because of Paulo being sick of seeing my face all the time!_

“Aye, Miss Hana, ya should come over here!” Silvano called my name gleefully, even if he had used an honorific that I hated much more than his “nickname” for me. “Ecchi ain’t gonna stop cryin’ like a baby until ya do!”

“I–I’m not crying!” Shoichi quickly defended himself, but I hadn’t time to dwell on his embarrassment.

“What have I told you about the “Miss Hana”, Agent Dipshit?” I testily shot back. “If you hate my name so much, use something else.”

“Ain’t gotta be so forward with the hate, missy,” Silvano laughed. “I ain’t mean to; it ain’t _my_ fault my mamma taught me manners. I’m tryin’ my best not to do it, too. Ya name still feels gross on my tongue.”

I ignored his comment and took my own seat across from him beside Fuuta, who continuously drew designs on the wooden table. I squinted my eyes in an attempt to see just what was on this child’s mind, but I couldn’t hope to decipher his well-hidden specialness that Paulo referred to.

_What the hell does he want with an eleven–year–old? What’s so special about this weird kid who stares like he can see through people?_

As if the thought was spoken aloud, his brilliant brown eyes turned up to me, but he quickly avoided my gaze and concentrated more on the imaginary drawings he was making on the table.

_Is he… scared of me? I mean, Shoichi says I’m scary, but… somehow, it doesn’t feel like it’s that simple…_

“Hana,” Shoichi caught my attention with a sheepish glance that turned quickly to confusion. “I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while… but does this mean that I’m… in the Mafia?”

“Heck, sure it does!” Silvano cut in for me, bringing his hands to the back of his head in a relaxed pose. “Aye, ya went and sold narcotics with me yesterday. Ya’re screwed even if ya ain’t in the Mafia, so ya might as well join.”

I couldn’t hold back a giggle at Shoichi’s reddening face before Fuuta stopped and stared directly at Shoichi, who met his gaze questionably.

“Shoichi–nii, do you know what happens if you decide to join?”

Silvano’s face morphed into obvious suspicion as his eyes narrowed thoughtfully before answering to Fuuta’s question that wasn’t even directed toward him:

“Why would he know? That’s what he’s been tryna figure out, yeah!”

“I wish I _did_ know,” Shoichi sighed. “That way I could pick the right choice.”

I cast a sidelong glance at Fuuta, who had grown silent, and I could see his eyes hardening as he stared at the table in front of him before looking up again.

“Do you want to know your future? Do you want to know what will happen if you choose to go a different path, Shoichi–nii?”

My spittle thrust upward in my throat, causing me to furiously begin coughing as both Shoichi and Silvano’s faces transformed from confused to surprised.

_What the fuck does he know about seeing the future? That’s not even possible, unless the little shit is joking!_

Besides myself, no one that I knew had even _thought_ of seeing the future… and the future that I had seen was 24 hours of bullshit. However, for this child to look up and say that he could see our futures _right now…_ it was just too good to be true.

“What, are you pulling our legs?” I snapped. “Don’t think any of us will believe that sh–”

“I’m goin’ first!” Silvano’s plea drowned out the end of my sentence as he leaned over the table anxiously toward the child. “Aye, I’ve always wanted to know if I grew up ‘nd got married ‘nd had lotsa little me’s runnin’ ‘round!”

_This dumbass actually believes him!_

“Who’d marry _you_ , anyway?” I turned the brunt of my wrath to Silvano’s beaming face as he lounged beside Shoichi. “You’re vile, not to mention a total nutcase, a proud member of Namimori’s mob, _and_ you’re a mama’s boy!”

“Yeah, missy,” Silvano laughed heartily at me. “Guess what? I’m proud of it, too!”

Shoichi turned from our softening banter to Fuuta, whose face had suddenly blanked.

“I’ll be first, Fuuta… but is this the crazy stuff you were talking about when we left my apartment?”

The child nodded slowly without meeting his eye, but I hardly had enough strength to ask what that was all about. Fuuta had finally turned to face Shoichi and he smiled before gently slipping out of his chair and dragging it with him to the edge of the table, beside my best friend. Slowly, Fuuta touched his own forehead lightly to Shoichi’s.

My mouth opened to make fun of Shoichi’s general uncomfortableness, but I stopped short when Fuuta opened his eyes and they appeared to have a lighter tint to them, giving them an odd, glowing effect.

“Your future is clear,” Fuuta’s high-pitched voice was almost even more so, even with the monotonous tone that he had taken on as I inched away from the confrontation. “Staying with the Mafia will allow you to make new friends and keep old ones, but getting out is out of the question. Leaving the Mafia at the closest chance will only result in the loss of you and your kin’s lives.”

“Well shit,” Silvano laughed to himself. “I wonder which one Ecchi’s gonna choose!”

_How do we know this kid isn’t spitting shit out just because he can?_

I watched the tranquility enter into Fuuta’s features as he lifted his eyes up into the air and Shoichi flinched away when his eyes turned back to stare into his. As if the motions were a ritual, the child simply removed his forehead from Shoichi’s and took a deep breath as his eyes faded back into their scarily-warm brown hue.

“How did I do, Shoichi-nii?”

Fuuta’s semi-excitement seemed genuine, but I brought my hand up to my mouth as I locked eyes with Silvano, who’s mischievous glint had turned into a reproachful glare.

_He doesn’t trust this kid, either._

There was something odd about this child, just as Paulo had said. There was a reason why he wanted this eleven-year-old so badly and why he was willing to cut down my best friend to get it. The ability to see the future, to know the outcomes of all of the choices that you make… it could make sure Paulo saw nothing but success. He would never have to worry about making a wrong investment or showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together as Silvano sheepishly raised his hand.

“Aye, kid, wanna do mine, too? Ecchi ain’t gonna be the one who gets all the fun.”

Fuuta looked bewildered as he glanced at Shoichi for approval, who nodded softly, but he did approach Silvano cautiously before dipping his head in to touch Silvano’s forehead.

_There’s no way this shit is real._

I watched as Silvano’s eyes widened and he stared at Fuuta as their eyes locked and Fuuta’s took on that strange glow.

“Your future is clear. In the coming days, you will see what terrible things life has in store for you, but even though the outcome seems bleak, your purpose is not.”

“Why’s he gotta talk all cryptic like that?” Despite the darkness that was forecasted in Silvano’s life, he smiled and laughed at Fuuta’s prediction. “Why ain’t he gonna just tell me what I gotta do to avoid all that, like Ecchi?”

“It’s unavoidable,” Fuuta cut in unexpectedly. “How you decide to cope with the pain is your choice and yours alone. How you act on it will decide the rest.”

With that, Fuuta eyes faded back to their original color and Silvano stared ahead with confusion taking his expression.

_There’s no way he could be that weird about something if he was pulling it out of his ass… but how? What logic is there that proves this is even possible?_

I opened my mouth to say it, but I lost my words as the child stared at me now, approaching me as if he thought I would yell at him for even looking at me.

“Is it okay if I do yours, too?” The meek voice he spoke to me with was laughable, but I decided against it as I let my disbelief slide down my throat.

_Even if I refuse to believe it… trying it out won’t hurt, will it?_

With that, Fuuta came close to me and let his forehead rest on mine as I waited patiently for but a moment before his eyes widened and he backed away from me. Fear sparked in his gaze as I waited for an answer that came in a wobbly voice:

“I… I can’t see it!”

“What the hell do you mean you can’t see it?” I asked sourly. Although, I was thoroughly glad that he may have sensed how disbelieving of his “power” I was.

“I–I… I can’t see anything but blackness,” Fuuta had stumbled briefly under the shock, but that was not all. “I’ve never had this happen before…”

The blatant terror that rested in his being pained me to see, even if I had never really been comfortable around this kid in the first place.

Why couldn’t he see mine? What had I done for him to not be able to see mine in the slightest?

Was I suddenly _believing_ in this bullshit?

_Is that why he’s always appeared afraid of me? Is it because he already knew there was something off about me? Even so, why me in the first place? What did I do wrong?_

Shoichi glanced at me before getting up to stand beside the whimpering child.

“Fuuta… can you do anything else? Didn’t you say something about predictions to me? D-does it have anything to do with ”

The change of subject seemed to take Fuuta off-guard as the light in his eyes returned.

“Shoichi-nii…” Fuuta started gratefully as he comfortably sat on the ground and he took a deep breath before opening his eyes up again. “At one time, I can tell you what your highest ranked category is, what you’re most likely to do out of the three of us, and your best trait…”

My heart jumped up to my throat when I noticed how dead inside he looked. The eyes that he donned now were void of the light that shone in them just seconds ago. My whole body lightened for such a moment that I genuinely thought I had fallen out of my chair or I had fainted in some sort of weird fashion… but instead I floated upward.

Shoichi and Silvano followed close behind as we floated in the air, completely helpless to the actions our bodies had decided to make.

“ _Che diavolo*?_ What the hell’s this?” Silvano flailed in midair and even Shoichi looked disgruntled as the two of them struggled to stay upright.

_What the…? This isn’t possible!_

Fuuta’s eyes wandered toward Silvano and as they locked onto him. “You’re number 118 out of 86,202 in the “Momma’s Boy” category, the most likely out of the four of us to get uncontrollably angry, and your best feature is your charm.”

“Aye, I understand all the rest of ‘em,” Silvano began his whiny rant. “But mamma’s boy? That ain’t cool; I love my mamma. Why’s everybody gotta hate on it?”

“Charm?” I scoffed at him as I fought to keep my legs glued together in midair. “What the hell kind of charm does _he_ have?”

Shoichi couldn’t resist a laugh as Silvano shot a reproachful glare at me. “I ain’t use nothin’ on ya, missy! Ya get nothin’!”

Fuuta had immediately moved onto Shoichi, who had been mostly quiet, but Shoichi’s eyes had darted around the room a couple of times, telling me how nervous he really was.

“You’re number 8,961 out of 86,202 in the “Won’t Take No For an Answer” category, you’re the most likely out of the four of us to raise a happy family, and your best feature is your understanding nature.”

_Understanding nature? Bullshit. We argue over the smallest things and we get mad at each other just for saying them… I don’t think that classifies as “understanding”. Fuuta’s broken._

I watched Fuuta turn his head slowly to me, and I dreaded what would happen. Maybe, if he could rank me, it’d just reveal the future that we were supposedly doomed in, according to Byakuran. If he couldn’t tell me my future, maybe he would just tell me statistics about myself that will help me get to the end goal; a better future for me and my friends.

Instead, I got that surprised stare once more as Fuuta’s eyes slowly glowed until they returned to their usual hue, resulting in me suddenly propelling toward the chair I was sitting in before we suddenly began to float. I hit my ankle on the table as I fell, but that didn’t change the look on Fuuta’s face:

“I still… can’t… see anything…” Fuuta’s voice shook now. The façade that he had plastered on his face before had disappeared. I was left staring at a helpless, confused child. “It’s blocked. It’s not there. Your future isn’t there. Your rankings aren’t there… all I get is blackness.”

“Why?” I asked, whipping my hair out of my face as I recovered from the sudden fall. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“No,” Fuuta replied, burying his face in his hands briefly. “Never. I’m able to rank anyone and anything… but this is the first time that it’s blocked me from doing one or the other… it’s scary…”

The boy trailed off for but a moment, but he turned straight back to me with eyes that could put my mother’s to shame.

“ _You’re_ scary.”

My heart hit the bottom of my stomach when the usually blank face he sported had turned into nothing but suspicion.

_First my own mother and now a child that I’ve done literally nothing to… is everyone going to end up hating me?_

“Aye, he ain’t know that missy’s scary? Thought that’d be the first thing he figured out!” Silvano, as usual, couldn’t help but laugh at the dilemma at hand.

On the other hand, Shoichi stared between the two of us and his eyebrows rose as if he was being pressured to say something in this situation.

“I–I know I’m an empty picture frame when it comes down to stuff like this, but… I’m sure it has nothing to do with what Hana has done, Fuuta.”

Those distrustful eyes turned easily to Shoichi and they morphed into an obscure form of affection for my best friend.

“Are you sure about that?”

My skin tingled as I forced myself not to jump in and say something that I would regret later. The almost-sure way that this kid had implied that I had somehow duped his “all-powerful” ranking system was absolutely ridiculous.

_There’s absolutely no way in hell that I could manage to mess up how he sees things in his otherworldly fashion. I didn’t do anything different than usual. If anything, Silvano would be the one to fuck something like this up._

I let my eyes wander over to him, but he didn’t appear malicious at all. His blonde hair only faintly quivered when he moved and he smiled widely when he noticed my gaze and I quickly turned my attention away from him.

_Cheshire, huh?_

Fuuta continued to give me a questionable stare, but we were interrupted when the door to the stairs closed and calm, ominous footsteps filled the silence that we sat in. It was only moments until Rossie appeared. His nervous presence had amplified, regardless of how hardcore his Mohawk was.

“Um… the boss would like to see all of you upstairs.”

I glanced at Silvano and he shrugged.

_What the hell does Paulo want with us now? I mean, I want to be optimistic and think that maybe he wants to let us out of his business… but I know now after chatting with him that that isn’t the case. Other than that, unless he has a huge haul for all of us to go out on, I have no idea what the hell he could want with all of us._

I was the first to stand up and Shoichi quickly followed me, Fuuta clinging to his side. Silvano sat in his chair and suddenly laughed, as if he suddenly realized what was going on.

“Ah, hell.”

I started up the stairs before looking at Shoichi.

“So, how’s it been, living the life that I was kidnapped into?”

“Hana… we were _both_ kidnapped into this.”

“Shut up.”

I rolled my eyes before getting to the top of the rickety stairs and I opened the door lightly when I turned toward Shoichi to say a well-thought-out remark about how well he was handling the stairs without his glasses, but the sudden squint and widening of his eyes made me stop.

“H-Hana…”

I turned around to the feeling of cold metal pressing against my forehead as Paulo grinned. The pistol that he held heavily weighed on my face and his lips parted just as his eyes squinted:

“Post up, Kurokawa.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> Why did you make Fuuta have the ability to be able to look into the future as well as being able to rank?
> 
> I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that because it’s kind of a spoiler, so all I’m going to say is that he is the key for making people not flip their shit later in the story. Nothing comes without explanation here.
> 
> What about Fuuta’s ranking book from canon?
> 
> Canon? What canon? As for the ranking book, I always thought that thing was absolutely ridiculous, so I decided that he could do without it. Instead, I improved his memory of the things that he ranks.
> 
> Floating?
> 
> I’m putting this here just in case, but when Fuuta uses his ranking abilities in the “canon” we speak of, gravity sort of disappears for everything in the room (but I changed it in the sense that only people float rather than everything in the room because that makes me angry).
> 
> Why can’t Fuuta see Hana’s future like everyone else’s?
> 
> As much as I would love to answer this, I do believe that this is an important plotline and I can’t expose my answer just yet. However, I’m not sure if I made it easy to guess or not because I realize I have a tendency to do that… I hope not haha!
> 
> So, why is it that Paulo wants Fuuta so bad in the first place?
> 
> Well, in the “canon” that you speak of, Fuuta’s ranking powers seem to be described as “so accurate that anyone with Fuuta on their side would be able to rule the world”… I think that’s reason enough.
> 
> (Somewhat off-topic, but) Differing languages in your chapters?
> 
> As much as I would like to have people speak two different languages and just leave the translation to my author’s note, I’m just going to make it easier in a sense that I will do two things. 1) I will probably make the character both speak the unfamiliar language and say the English translation right after and 2) I will put the exact translation in the author’s note. Things in differing languages appear to have an asterisk “*” next to them, so watch for those!
> 
> Why are your Q&A’s so spicy sometimes?
> 
> I can’t help it, honestly. By the time I get done writing every chapter, my sass builds up until it leaks from my fingertips and onto my computer screen. Sometimes, it’s for the best.
> 
> Author’s Notes:
> 
> *Che diavolo - What the hell?
> 
> I was finally able to find a flower that had a plethora of interesting information on it.
> 
> I know that I apologize for every chapter, but I’m especially sorry for this one simply because of Fuuta and how I’m trying to characterize this creepy eleven-year-old. Hopefully next chapter will be better.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	18. Marigold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, talk about murder, mutilation mention, weapons, and a bridge chapter.

_ Flashback: _

_I rolled my eyes before getting to the top of the rickety stairs and I opened the door lightly when I turned toward Shoichi to say a well-thought-out remark about how well he was handling the stairs without his glasses, but the sudden squint and widening of his eyes made me stop._

_“H-Hana…”_

_I turned around to the feeling of cold metal pressing against my forehead as Paulo grinned. The pistol that he held heavily weighed on my face and his lips parted just as his eyes squinted:_

_“Post up, Kurokawa.”_

* * *

Chapter Eighteen:  Marigold  

_These flowers are found all over the world and for most people they are actually considered a weed that is invasive and is noxious. The Virgin Mary is where the name Mary's Gold came from, and this is a flower that was used as a flower of the dead in Mexico. Today, it is still used in a Day of the Dead ceremonies. Even though the marigold is used in a lot of floral bouquets and arrangements it actually represents emotions related to pain._

_Meaning:_ _grief, cruelty, and/or jealousy._

* * *

I stared down the bottom of the barrel of the gun that now stuck to my forehead, letting memories of what I had experienced in the future bathe me once again.

_Paulo’s going to shoot me?_

I stared until the gun lowered from my face and his face erupted into a smile before he let out a cold, rough laugh.

“Didn’t think I’d see that impudent face of yours scrunched up in fear, Kurokawa,” he sneered. “Pathetic.”

The glint on the metal of the weapon brought back the sweat and fear of the future that I had witnessed years ago. An invisible weight seemed to press against my lungs and prevent any sound from coming out of my mouth.

_Why does he have one of those?_

“As for this,” Paulo gestured to the killing machine in his grasp. “I’ll show you recruits what I mean. Get the hell up here and get in the car.”

My “boss” disappeared from sight as he yelled to anyone in the vicinity to pick a vehicle and get into it.

“Hana,” Shoichi had caught my attention as he stood beside me, Fuuta clinging to his right side. “What’s going on? Do you know?”

“Of course not!” I snapped back, immediately regretting my tone. “I mean…”

“It ain’t nothin’ much,” Silvano stood patiently at the bottom of the stairs. “The boss ain’t gonna do nothin’ dangerous. Wait ‘nd see.”

The snarky face he made at me was almost unnerving, but I let out a sigh before forcing myself up the stairs.

_Silvano’s an idiot. If only Byakuran had warned me to stay away from him instead._

* * *

It was a long five minutes of contemplating whether or not to do what Paulo said, but Silvano only told me that we basically had no choice. The four of us had hurried outside and toward the dark cars in the bright, April light of the afternoon. Paulo snapped his fingers and motioned for us to split and divvy ourselves into the two cars as quickly as possible as they sat in the driveway.

I, of course, made a beeline for the car that housed Violetta and Rossie, otherwise known as the car that did not have my father in it. Being the momma’s boy that he was, Silvano joined me. I had watched as Fuuta clung to Shoichi’s arm as they climbed into the back of the slightly larger vehicle beside Enzo, who I’m absolutely positive shot me a glare from afar as he scrambled for his seatbelt.

“Violetta,” Rossie addressed the kind woman who sat in the driver’s seat. “If you could refrain… please don’t drive recklessly–”

“Since when have I driven recklessly?” Violetta’s thick accent brought a different feeling to the car, for me, it was much like a secure blanket wrapping around my shoulders. “If I recall, it was Enzo who drives much like a drunk.”

Silvano laughed at his mother’s retort and I watched Paulo’s deep blue vehicle pull out, the sun shining upon a dent on the bumper that I could have only speculated its origins. When the car began to move, Silvano turned to me.

“Aye, we ain’t gonna do nothin’ dangerous, like I said… well,” he quickly stopped himself before starting again with the ghost of a mischievous thought on his face. “I mean, it ain’t dangerous once ya do it a couple’a times.”

_Idiot. If you’re not going to tell me, don’t say anything!_

I willed myself to stay silent as Rossie glanced back at us before staring straight ahead.

“The drive isn’t long, but the boss isn’t exactly in his right mind. I should have tried harder to convince Enzo to tell him that this wasn’t necessary.”

I didn’t want to delve into whatever Enzo had said, knowing how cruel and careless he could be. I didn’t want to believe that we, all four of us kids, were being allowed into the outside world… even if it was for whatever shady reason that Enzo, my father, and Paulo had come up with.

It was a brisk drive, trees floating around us and cars passing us without a clue that everyone involved in these two cars were possibly armed and obviously dangerous, but that was beside the point as we rolled up to a building on the outskirts of town. There was hardly a sign that said what the building stood there for and no indication as to why we were here. In fact, the only other vehicles that were outside seemed to be junky and rusty.

I glanced at Silvano for an explanation, but he only gave me the sliest smile before undoing his seatbelt. Rossie let out a long sign as he ducked his head low to avoid messing up his perfect Mohawk by hitting the top of the door, and Violetta calmly stepped out as if she was about to take a walk around the neighborhood.

_We’re not about to get killed… are we?_

The near-irrational thought was almost comforting, knowing that it would be a way out of this mess… but at the same time, I didn’t really fancy getting my life taken away solely because I existed.

“I’ll get the stuff out of the trunk.” Rossie nervously scooted toward the back of our dark vehicle and lifted up the trunk, revealing one black suitcase that didn’t exactly look innocent.

Silvano appeared to ignore this development and I quickly hurried over to his side.

“What the hell does Paulo have planned for us?” I whispered.

He turned and gave me the cockiest smirk that I had ever encountered as he sauntered toward Shoichi and Fuuta, who also stood around worriedly.

“Nah, missy. Ain’t gotta worry none! Ya’re probably gonna do just fine!”

_If only that was comforting… especially coming from him!_

Frustration welled up in my throat as I slunk toward Shoichi, who peered around the place with his presumably blurry eyes. Whatever we would be doing probably wouldn’t be easy for him in the first place, being that his eyes were pretty much out of commission.

“Shoichi-nii,” Fuuta’s muffled voice caught my attention as I neared the two of them. “Will everything be okay?”

Instinctively, Shoichi searched for me and when he found me, his eyebrows scrunched up in a silent question. Though, I couldn’t bring myself to give him a straight answer, knowing that I might just be completely wrong.

“Of course it’ll be okay,” Shoichi tried his hand at comforting the child. “I’m sure this is just some errand that we’re running.”

Silvano stood beside me and chuckled at Shoichi’s guess of what we were doing in the middle of nowhere, but I couldn’t reprimand him as Paulo came into view, motioning the four of us toward the large, graying building that looked too much like a recreational space.

_We don’t really have a choice. If he’s trying to torture us and drive us into some obscure form of paranoia and insanity, he’s doing a damn good job._

I was the first person to walk through the large, barn-like door, but I stopped when a loud sound rang out. My heart jolted out of place and faintly began to beat again as fear rose up into my throat at the sound of that gunshot.

_Have I been shot this time?_

Instead, I was greeted by Paulo’s laughter as he motioned to the corner of this large, darkened space. It was quite simply laid out, but there wasn’t much to see other than a supervisor and some booths that appeared to be sheltered by glass.

“Alright, grunts,” Paulo’s voice had turned from its usual cynical sneer to some form of amused tone. “I’ve neglected your training for a while due to other circumstances, but now we’ve got time. You’re going to learn how to shoot a firearm.”

Time slowed as I swayed on my feet.

I _couldn’t_ learn how to use a firearm. Hell, I couldn’t even hold one in my hands without getting all panicky and scared, knowing what the damn thing can do to a human. I watched Paulo’s face morph into more amusement when he saw the look on my face.

“You seem particularly up for the challenge, Kurokawa. In that case, why don’t you tell me why the hell you think I’m even bothering to let you shit stains use something so dangerous.”

I searched my scrambled thoughts for a quick input: “I don’t know, because you’re sick and tired of having useless kids working for you?”

The scorn that wafted out of the words that I had used was by no means on purpose; it was only a byproduct of how scared I was. Paulo and my father seemed to pick up on this, sharing a quick glance before Paulo continued to speak:

“Sounds about right, Kurokawa. In fact, this could be considered an important life lesson for you kids. The hell are you gonna do when some asswipe pulls out a gun and tells you to give over the money and the drugs, huh? You gonna sit there and drool and let this guy swindle you out of your pay? With a firearm, you won’t have to. With a firearm, you earn your respect on the streets around here. A fucker refuses to hand over the money? Put a couple of bullets in his head, that’ll change his mind.”

I shivered.

_He’s right, but putting it that way makes it so much more real._

Paulo surveyed both Shoichi and I as Rossie and Enzo respectively held tight to their briefcases and Enzo opened up his to reveal a gnarly looking gun that wasn’t the pistol that I was used to seeing.

“This is a submachine gun,” he explained briefly. “You want the lightweight feel in your hand like a pistol, but the rapid, merciless fire of a machinegun? This is it.”

Rossie opened his briefcase as well, showcasing a pistol that seemed pretty average and painfully familiar to me.

“This is just a standard pistol… most prefer to carry this just because it isn’t easily recognized because everyone who carries a weapon usually carries a pistol here in Namimori.”

I glanced between the two weapons impatiently.

_Where the hell is Paulo going with all of this?_

“Ah, yes. You’ll be learning how to shoot these damn things. However, Star Child,” Paulo addressed Fuuta as he clung tighter to Shoichi. “Don’t even try getting your hands on one of these. You’ll sit this one out, or so help me God I’ll let you sample one the hard way.”

The seriousness in Paulo’s gaze rubbed me the wrong way as my father briefly stepped forward.

“Silvano, you’ve already done your fair share of shooting, I’m sure. If you brought your own, you can practice on your own.”

In one swift motion, the blonde lifted his shirt up and pointed to a black object jutting out of his belt.

“Always got it on me, sir.”

_They’re willing to trust this dunce with a weapon? No wonder they’re so worried about all of these accidents that may or may not happen…_

“As for you two,” Paulo had turned his attention to both Shoichi and I. “You’re going to learn how to defend yourselves today.”

* * *

The basics were pretty simple as Paulo demonstrated himself how to reload both the pistol and the SMG. I even learned how to hold the SMG specifically before Paulo quickly interrupted our short lesson:

“Okay, so you’ve got the basics. The fuck are you gonna do if you don’t know how to shoot it? Rossie, take this one,” he gestured to Shoichi beside me, who hadn’t wanted anything to do with the firearms either. “Enzo, you’ll take Kurokawa.”

I decided against outright showing my distaste, only allowing my eye to twitch, but Enzo sighed deeply before Paulo gave the rest of the order:

“You’d best learn how to shoot before the day’s over. Don’t forget to put in any damned ear buds, either. You’ll hear ringing so loud you’ll think you’ve already made it to heaven… not that any of you fuckers will ever see that in the first place.”

Without waiting for either of us to ask what would happen if we didn’t learn within this time period, he stalked away, standing a fair distance away from the little booths as he nodded to the supervisor, who seemed as if they were used to shady people coming into their business.

Enzo turned to me and frowned. “I don’t want to work with you, and I assume you don’t want to work with me. Let’s just get this over with so we can go our separate ways.”

“Likewise,” I agreed as Enzo led me toward one of the booths furthest away from Paulo with the submachine gun in hand. “Am I going to use that gnarly thing?”

“The “gnarly thing” you’re referring to happens to be my gun,” he snapped quickly. “It’s gotten me through a few tight spots, and if you drop it I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you’ll do.”

I did my best holding it up to the bottom of the glass, in which there was a target beyond the horizon. Like I was told, I assumed a stance and gripped the imaginary gun tightly in my hands as Enzo inspected my posture.

“It’s not good enough. With that, you’ve got no mobility. You won’t be able to run if things go south. I’m not putting this gun in your hands if you’re going to fuck it up.”

_At least he’s not going to make me hold it just yet._

I had managed to ignore the niggling feeling of fear that crawled into my consciousness, but I loosened up my stance into something that I had seen before; the same stance that my best friend from the future had used while holding his own pistol.

Enzo nodded, surprisingly. “You learn fast. If only you knew when to stop running your little mouth.”

“Hah,” I couldn’t resist a laugh as he held the killing machine toward me. “You don’t need to hand me that thing.”

“Why the hell not, and who are you to order me around?” Enzo’s voice hardened at my blatant refusal to do what he asked me to do.

“I’m not going to need that damn thing.”

Enzo briefly laughed at me as he jabbed the gun into my back uncomfortably.

“Do you know what happens to kids who don’t carry guns on these streets?” His breath whispered through my hair. “They die.”

“So?” My voice trembled as he snaked around me. “I don’t c–”

“You don’t care?” Enzo guessed, easily finishing my sentence. “You don’t care if you lose your fucking life over something that _that_ _bastard_ made you do?”

He quickly jerked in Paulo’s direction. The man’s head bobbed up and down as he talked to the supervisor in a hushed voice and I watched Silvano and his mother line up beside each other and begin to shoot their pistols, speaking to each other in Italian with every shot. Shoichi appeared to be in the same boat as me; reluctant to take hold of the gun as Rossie talked calmly to him.

_If only Enzo could come up with a better strategy like Rossie._

Acutely out of the corner of my eye, I watched Fuuta turn his gaze toward me before quickly redirecting himself to Shoichi. My father’s never wavered from me, though, and I pointedly turned my back on him.

“Didn’t fucking think so, kid,” I sat there and watched Enzo get much more worked up over my refusal. “I know you’re scared. Don’t think that because my hair’s in my face that I can’t see the fucking look on your sorry face. Pick up the gun and shoot the damn target so we don’t get into trouble with the boss.”

He extended the gun to me once again, and I stared at it as he appeared to unhinge even further.

_I can’t take that gun. I’m too scared. Even those years ago when I visited the future I was terrified of firearms. I can’t carry a gun. I can’t shoot one… but if I don’t, I’ll never be able to seize the Mafia. I won’t be able to take over Paulo’s enterprise when he’s able to trust me with taking over._

“Take it, dammit,” Enzo swore at me once more. “Your stance and technique are good enough to be good with my weapon, just like the boss thought. Unfortunately for you kids, you don’t have a choice. Just do it.”

I finally relented, touching the firearm before giving myself a chance to think it over; something Shoichi would pinch me and call me “reckless” for.

“Now, just line yourself up with the target and see how you fare. I’ll give further instruction after your first shot.”

My “mentor” stepped away from me as I lined up my shot shakily. The weight was beginning to feel real in my hands now.

_I told my mother I haven’t killed anyone… that I wouldn’t kill anyone… but Enzo’s telling me that the whole reason I have this thing in the first place is to kill._

“Gonna wait until the target shoots you back?” Enzo sneered at me from behind, but I tried my best to straighten my shot in the midst of his judgmental stare. “I’m trying my best, asshole…”

My world jolted to a stop in an instant. I had lined up my target, and if I didn’t pull the trigger, I wouldn’t find that comfortable spot that my conscience suddenly alerted me to.

_I can’t shoot this killing machine._

I closed my eyes for a split moment when my index finger jerked, flicking the trigger backward and allowing at least two rounds out of the barrel of the gun. My eyes opened when it was over, my shivering hands getting worse when I saw that one of my rounds had nicked the left side of the paper, missing the target completely.

“Too bad, kid,” Enzo inspected my hit carefully. “He’d have got you for two reasons. One–you missed. Obviously. Two–you took too damn long.”

_I don’t want to kill anyone. What part of that does everyone not understand?_

“Kurokawa,” Paulo’s deep voice sent a shiver up my spine. “Is that the best you can do?”

“It was my first shot,” I snapped. “What the hell did you expect; a perfect bull’s-eye?”

Paulo’s almost-insolent face adapted into a blatant form of anger. “Watch your damn tone. Try again and do it right this time.”

Without another word, the man walked away, approaching Shoichi next, who hadn’t appeared to make any progress at all. Even Enzo seemed to be annoyed with Paulo’s cocky insertion in our “training”.

“No wonder I’m lacking remorse for you,” Enzo muttered to Paulo’s back. “You make it so easy…”

_What the hell is he talking about?_

I opened my mouth to ask about it, but Enzo snapped his attention toward me mercilessly.

“Take another shot. Relax a bit. Put your feet up. It’s not like you’re going to get shot and killed in this profession, kid. The more accurate you get and the faster you figure it out, the less likely it is that you’ll be killed.”

The malice in his tone gave way to a plethora of other reasons why he would be angry. Enzo had always had a creepy vibe to him, making Silvano and I uncomfortable on multiple occasions… and something had always seemed off for as long as I had known him personally… but today was different. This anger was not directed at private thoughts, but rather, our own boss.

_There’s more on his mind than me._

“Before I try,” I carefully lowered the scary weapon from an attack position, pointing it at the ground. “Do you think you could answer a question for me really quick?”

“Don’t waste your time asking if you can ask a question if you can just ask the question.”

_Try saying that five times fast._

I cleared my throat as Enzo shifted his weight.

“Hypothetically, do you think I have a shot at Paulo’s position? You know, if I try hard enough or whatever. Totally hypothetical, I don’t mean anything by it…”

“You don’t want that shit, girl,” he unexpectedly cut in. “There is no way out of that. Your rep’s tarnished, you’ll have no friends, and you’ll have to put one of your colleagues six feet under every so often. You might have all the wealth in the world, but you’ll always be a nobody with nothing to live for.”

I would have killed to see the look on Enzo’s face as he talked about his boss and the people he worked with that way, but there was nothing to see as he swiftly turned away.

“Just shoot the damn target already, and don’t worry about missing. It won’t matter after today, anyway.”

_Why the hell is he so cryptic about it?_

The SMG in my hands felt like a heavy-ass paperweight, but I hiked it up as I ignored the tingly, dangerous feeling it gave me as I let loose until the gun ran out of ammunition… and the target that I had been shooting at was nothing but a mutilated mess.

I had done more than hit more than the target.

I had destroyed what was left of it.

* * *

I stepped out of the vehicle as Paulo slowly put it into park and turned off the engine. We had practiced for at least six hours, allowing me to get a feel for Enzo’s gun before having to give it back to him. Through those six hours, my father had come to supervise my progress occasionally, giving Enzo a hard time by telling me to unlearn everything that he had taught me. Of course, it was hardly the funniness that he had wanted it to be. Instead, Paulo had watched me with a careful eye and told me that I picked everything up quickly, despite being a “scared little shit” as he had put it.

Shoichi and Fuuta met me as we stepped out of the vehicles; Shoichi had, after some tough negotiation, picked up the pistol and fired a couple of rounds. Even though only a couple of his rounds had hit the paper, the ones that did showed how deadly my best friend with a weapon could be… even without his glasses. At first, the shock on his face had mirrored mine when I found out that I was stuck here, but it was almost as if he had grown to accept that we had no choice but to comply.

“You did well, Hana,” Shoichi’s eyes brightened with the sight of me, but I noticed Fuuta shoot me an angry glare from my best friend’s side. “I mean… I couldn’t even handle a pistol, let alone a submachine gun!”

“Ah, shut up,” I scoffed. “You’re basically blind right now. You’ve got an excuse to suck.”

Silvano approached me and laid his hand on my shoulder, relaxing slightly as he spoke to the three of us. “Ya both done good for a first time, ‘specially Ecchi. I mean, I ain’t think I could pull off just _holdin’_ a pistol without bein’ able to see straight.”

All of the adults had hurried inside as the four of us shared a brief conversation, hurrying inside merely seconds later. I took a deep gulp of air after finally being able to think again without pushing my rational thoughts to the back of my mind.

Instead, Enzo approached the four of us once Silvano locked the door. The air about him had changed in the ten minutes since we had last looked at each other, and I opened my mouth to ask him what his damage was.

“Don’t talk, kid,” he spat in my direction. “Anyway, I’ve got a good tip for you kids and I’m only gonna say it once so you had better listen the hell up; if I were you, I’d get the hell out of here by eleven o’clock sharp. It’s six now, so don’t sweat it for a bit.”

Shock pulsed through my body and I thought about asking the reason why, but Silvano nodded without question.

“Through that painting passage?”

“That’s the one, kid.” He paused for a moment before holding his weapon toward me.

“I don’t w–”

“Telling you to keep it, kid. Don’t question it,” he quickly glanced behind himself in the meantime. “I wouldn’t say a damned word about this to anyone if I were you.”

Without another word, Enzo turned on his heel and ascended the stairs as if nothing had happened between the five of us.

“Let’s go downstairs, yeah.” Silvano suggested before I was able to talk about how screwy Enzo was.

As soon as Silvano closed the door behind the four of us, he sighed.

“Ole Enzo’s up to somethin’. Ain’t have the slightest idea, but he’s up to somethin’ that he ain’t want us caught up in. Otherwise he wouldn’t tell us to use the secret way… or why he gave ya his gun, Hana. Norm’ly he ain’t give nobody access to the damn thing… not to mention he seems to be sneakin’ ‘round the boss…”

_I don’t know what the hell he’s up to… I mean, he’s always been weird. I don’t really have any other way to say it. He just comes off as weird, no matter what._

Shoichi seemed to be particularly put off by this development, as he glanced worriedly from me and Silvano. The gun that I had been forced to carry rested nicely in my hands after today, but at what cost?

I had reached the bed and I fell into it, not even noticing that I was as tired as I was, falling asleep regardless of the peril that seemed to surround everyone today… but I couldn’t place the brief feeling that I was going to regret falling asleep.

* * *

Paulo stretched his muscles; a good meal always had been his weakness. After a whole day of listening to these grunts shoot at paper targets just to further his business. Not a single one of them had complained (which was much more than what he’d expected of Masato’s child) but somehow, he was bothered.

Something was off.

Something was wrong.

The rhythm in which he lived his life was disturbed by something that he couldn’t put his finger on, but he tried to let go of the paranoid feeling.

_“Maybe it’s because Kurokawa seemed undoubtedly tame today. Eh, I don’t give a damn. As long as they’re willing to do my bidding, I don’t give a damn.”_

His long sign stopped short when eleven o’clock rolled around, quicker than he had expected. He stood up, straightening his outfit, but it was then when he realized that the window beside his desk had been inappropriately lit up.

Impulse led him to checking it, peeking through the blinds to see if it was just a neighbor’s car light, but instead, he was greeted with nothing but a plethora of cars coming down the street.

_“What the hell?”_

Instinct led Paulo to standing up and running down the stairs, leaving his office door open and messing up the nightly product in his hair. The lights were bright, sure, but it took him a moment to recognize the colors in those flashing lights.

An entire fleet of squad cars strung along the whole street, including a large vehicle used to transport suspects of crimes… but something seemed wrong, besides the fact that Paulo’s dreams of the future were ruined.

A man stood outside, cooperating with the police… but Paulo didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. Not only was law enforcement closing in on him and his business, but now he knew that he had been betrayed.

_“…God dammit.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> What’s going on?
> 
> Next chapter will have a good amount of answers to all of the questions that you’re bound to have, because I’m sure you don’t want any spoilers… but at the same time, I tried to hint to it but I either make it way too obvious or way too obscure and that is something that I definitely need to work on.
> 
> Training with guns?
> 
> Well, not every sixteen/seventeen/eighteen year old kid knows immediately how to use a firearm… and a good amount of them don’t want to. Paulo figures that these kids, if they’re going to be a part of his business, are going to have to learn to defend themselves and his “merchandise” if you may. I dunno; why make kids work for you if they can’t be useful to the same extent that other members are?
> 
> Why are you so cruel?
> 
> Being nice is a drag sometimes, so I figured, why not torture my readers with painful cliffhangers?
> 
> Why didn’t Fuuta train with the others?
> 
> What kinda hostage would he be if he suddenly knew how to use a firearm? He’d be as good as gone.
> 
> Author’s Notes:
> 
> I planned on this being way longer than it turned out to be, but I decided to take out all of the stops and let the plot start here.
> 
> It’s been a long exposition, I’ll tell you (and I didn’t really prepare for the long exposition as it is…) but from here on out, there are no baby steps.
> 
> ~Teafully~


	19. Whortleberry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Foul language, some slurs, changing POVs, revelations, the plot doing a thing, law enforcement, feels, more cursing than usual, and me not knowing when to stop.

 

_ Flashback: _

_An entire fleet of squad cars strung along the whole street, including a large vehicle used to transport suspects of crimes… but something seemed wrong, besides the fact that Paulo's dreams of the future were ruined._

_A man stood outside, cooperating with the police… but Paulo didn't want to believe what he was seeing. Not only was law enforcement closing in on him and his business, but now he knew that he had been betrayed._

"… _God dammit."_

* * *

Chapter Nineteen: Whortleberry

_A group of evergreen and summer-leafing shrubs allied to the Heath family, the Whortleberry is often beautiful in bloom, in fruit, and in autumn color, yet neglected in gardens. Most kinds of whortleberry are best in partial shade and in moist or boggy soil, though some do well in drier and sunny places. Many kinds of whortleberry bear good fruit of agreeable acid flavor, known under various popular names and valued for tarts and preserves._

_Meaning:_   _treachery, treason, and/or disloyalty._

* * *

Paulo stared through the graying blinds caked with dust in what  _was_  the empty dining room in his home base. The one place, out of all of the other safe houses he oversaw, that he actually thought would be the safest. That was the whole reason why the indispensable members of his enterprise along with himself had been holed up in such a place. It was supposedly impenetrable. Now, he was trapped in his safe house with nowhere to run. Escape would be his best bet, but it was nearly impossible. Instead, Paulo was faced with nothing but a burning question in his mind: what  _would_  be his best bet?

The officers and their bulletproof vest moved like shadows in the cover of night, creeping along the edges of the large home. Only the glint of the metal on their high-powered guns gave them away.

The first and undisputable option was to escape and leave every man for himself, though Paulo couldn't help but scoff at this obvious yet cowardly possibility. Never in his life had he ever run away from a challenge, let alone let it be  _law enforcement_  that he was running from with his tail between his legs. He'd rather  _die_  than go down that way… but the way it was looking, he may have to choose between one or the other.

"That fuckin' son of a bitch!" Paulo snarled as he kicked at the wall before scrambling around. The air seemed to harden around his being when a heavy breath hung in the air from a long, small sigh. Startled, the bleakness of the situation began to cloud his senses as he whipped around with his arms up and his hands clenched into fists. Instead, he found one of his presumably-loyal subordinates behind him as he backed away from the window.

Violetta stood only a step away, her usually-bright eyes clouded with what he could vaguely recognize as fear in the dim lighting from the already-darkened safe house.

"Boss, what shall we do?" Her gentle voice hung thinly in the air before dropping into the abyss of the situation.

Did she even  _understand_  the circumstances?

"We're all  _fucked_ ," The words had hardly escaped Paulo's mouth when Violetta slowly allowed her dainty hand to wander up toward her face and her lithe fingers curled around her cheek inattentively as Paulo spoke rapidly. "You see who just fucked us over? Everything we've worked years to build is  _fucked_. All of us are getting put away for life or worse, Violetta. Your son included!"

Violetta's eyes widened as the footsteps of law enforcement seemed to get louder and louder. The space in that empty dining room began to close in as the weight of the situation grew with the thickness of the blackness in the home. Without a single word, Violetta turned on her heel, her thin blonde hair spiraling around her body and she ran.

A door shut forcefully, causing the man to flinch before he resolved to the only thing he knew how to do when things weren't going right; causing mayhem. The gun that sat comfortably on his hip as usual hadn't ever caused his hands to itch as they did today. They egged him into allowing the piece of metal and bringer of carnage out of its holster. It sat comfortably in Paulo's palm as his mind fuzzed.

He wouldn't have to run.

He could fight, just like he usually did in situations where he wouldn't get what he wanted and everything decided to go south.

"No." Paulo's subconscious spoke through him.

Shooting at the cops would screw him over even more than he currently had been. It would simply make everything worse than it already was. He'd seen it happen to other criminals, whether it be personally or in the news. Paulo was not about to become one of them.

" _I don't want to go down without a fight, but if I fight, my consequences will be even worse."_

His arms began to twitch as frustration strangled him for a brief moment. The cops that swarmed around his safe house only added to this silent, fuming anger in which he suffered in. Put simply, there was little to nothing that he could do if he wanted to keep his life.

"B-boss!" Rossie's terrified stutter temporarily had Paulo's attention. "Are you alright? W-we're under attack!"

"No shit," Paulo spat at his associate's observation, gesturing fiercely with his head at the commotion outside. "Did you have anything to do with this? Were  _you_  in on this shit?"

Rossie's dull eyes sharpened with fear at the mere prospect of it and Paulo immediately let his shoulders relax. Rossie had no part in this.

"N-no, boss! I j-just–what do you want us to do?"

Rossie's menacing Mohawk only seemed to lose its tough exterior when faced with such an impossible situation. There was not a single speck of fight left in this man and Paulo could almost smell the terror seeping out of his forehead in the form of sweat.

"We can't do shit."

Masato's strong voice interrupted Paulo in a surprising turn-of-events, and Paulo whipped around to his right-hand man.

"Did you know this was going to happen? Did you have anything to do with this fucking shit?"

Masato calmly shook his head, glancing into the cracked, dust-filled blinds that Paulo had been staring out of just a moment beforehand.

"No. I'm just as surprised as you are. Are we going to fight or stand down and be taken in like pigs for slaughter?"

Paulo stepped up toward the man who he had come to know in these past years. They held a degree of trust in each other that neither had allowed with any other, and going down together was nothing short of expected. Paulo had known a day such as this would come… it was just a matter of when.

"No, we're not going to fight. The fuck do you want; to be taken out of here in a body bag or in handcuffs? Which one sounds more appealing to you?"

The safe house had become very quiet within the next few moments. The sound of the police scurrying around outside had ceased. Paulo's teeth began to grind together at the thought of them being in position, ready to destroy everything that he had built up from nothing with their guns and their handcuffs.

"Both of those sound equally appealing," Masato coolly replied as he glanced at the red and blue lights flashing on the walls behind the three of them. "but which one will you be choosing, boss?"

Paulo staggered back as the sound of a policeman drowned out any rational thought for but a moment:

" **Please step out of the house with your hands in the air. You have three minutes to comply. There is a warrant for each and every one of your arrests. There is no use in fighting back."**

No use in fighting. The one thing that Paulo knew how to do correctly was fight the power.

He stared between Rossie and Masato, hoping that one of them would make their own decision so that he would not have to make a decision himself. As the boss, they looked to him now more than ever for a command or a duty, but there was nothing as a boss or a human being that Paulo could say to them that would ease their need for leadership. The thought that their next stop was either prison or the afterlife bore into the situation as Paulo struggled to make a choice.

" _I could either lead them into prison and go down like a bitch or choose to have us fight a losing battle by resorting to resisting arrest."_

Masato nodded slowly as if the thought was written on his face and turned to Rossie, who understood the quiet in the air as if an idea was thoroughly voiced. The pressure that turned a second into a full minute pressed against Paulo, making the hair on his arms stick up beneath his blazer.

"I will be the first one out." The words seemed to impress Paulo himself; his heart began to race with every aspect of the thought of going down without a fight. "I might go down, but I'll keep my dignity as your boss in-check."

Rossie opened his mouth to argue, but Paulo quickly pushed past him before he could give himself the opportunity to change his mind.

" _This is what I want. I want to go down and not have to worry about all of the work that I've done to keep this business afloat. I'll spend the rest of my years in jail, where I will get free food and all the fucking naptimes that I could ever hope for."_

The double-edged thought came with a price. What  _would_  become of his business without him running it? Anyone that he would have thought to hand the responsibility over to was going down with him.

" _Fuck it. It's ending here. I'd rather rot in a cell than end myself here."_

Anything that Rossie or Masato could have said to him fell on deaf ears as Paulo came to the conclusion that he would act on this short burst of calmness and refrain from fighting. The gun that he had been holding slowly slid out of his palm and hit the dirty carpet floor as he reached for the doorknob.

" _Fuck it."_

Pulling the door open, Paulo faced his fate as he would any fight in the streets. Regardless of this outcome, he had the people that he loved and cared for beside him the whole way.

* * *

"Hm?"

I had been jolted awake, but the three people around me were all asleep; Silvano had comfortably rested his head on his own pillow on the bed adjacent to me while Shoichi and Fuuta had both gotten comfortable in the old, wooden chairs surrounding the worn wooden table. I furiously rubbed my eyes as the sleepy haze that glossed over my lenses temporarily blinded me, but I soon found something else to focus on: voices.

_Who would be up at this time of night?_

I glanced toward the clock, unable to make out the second digit as a spider had crawled onto it and stayed there until I shooed it away with my hand:

11:07 PM.

" _If I were you, I'd get the hell out of here by eleven o'clock sharp."_

Enzo's words echoed faintly in my ears as my memory of earlier today surfaced. Our hectic "training"-if that's what Paulo were to call it-had briefly slipped my mind, but it came back with a vengeance at Enzo's stifling warning.

The seven on the clock changed to an eight as I blinked. Whatever Enzo was up to was none of my business, but Silvano had mentioned that he thought the mysterious man whose curtain of hair never seemed to sweep away from his eyes was "sneaking around".

_It's none of my business. All I'm supposed to do is do as he says; Paulo trusts him._

I slowly sat up as the voices seemed to multiply; there were more of them. At first, I thought I had been hearing familiar voices, but when they got louder, I realized that these voices were from different individuals than the ones I had slowly come to know. I couldn't place it, but something about this situation felt… dangerous.

"Silvano!"

My voice cracked slightly as I cleared my throat, briefly allowing fear to take its place in my conscious mind: what if something terrible was going to happen?

_I'm thinking too heavily about this. There's no way someone like Paulo would just sit back and take a negative happening; everyone here is trained to do what they need to do to prevent the worst from happening._

Was I condoning homicide to keep this horrendous secret under wraps? Had I been exposed to this way of life for much too long, causing me to side with the people that I had come to respect during my kidnapping regardless of their questionable enterprise? Was my mother right in that I was no different from my father; a lying, disgusting, sneaky murderer-in-training?

"Silvano, I think you should hear this," my voice refrained from cracking this time as I nudged the blonde man, who slowly turned over and rubbed his eyes with a soft groan. "I don't know if I'm hearing things or if there is something going on upstairs."

"Ah, 'nd my dream was just gettin' to the good part, too."

Silvano sat up and rubbed his eyes for a moment longer before he glanced around at our darkened surroundings. The only source of light in the room was the old lamp between our tattered beds on the nightstand beside the clock; the bulb was beginning to darken. The only item of mine that I could see clearly was Enzo's submachine gun that he had so-graciously gifted me with. As Silvano had pointed out, it was not a well-received gift on my part; it was Enzo's prized possession. Neither of us had been able to figure out why he had given it to me when I had only handled it for nary a few hours, and the mystery surrounding it made my head ache with anticipation.

"Don't you hear the voices?" I asked again, trying not to raise my voice as paranoia began to set in in the wake of the past two days I had been stuck here. "They keep talking, but I can't make out what they're saying."

"Ain't gotta be so serious, missy," Silvano's tired whisper morphed into a quiet laugh. "It's probably–"

I never got to hear the end of the sentence as my heart dropped into my stomach and relayed back up to my throat; the voices had gotten louder. I had managed to make sense out of one word and I had heard it clear enough to realize the scale of the issue:

Warrant.

I should know what that means after years of watching nothing but crime shows and police busts. The police were currently constructing a raid on the home that we lived so comfortably in.

"How in the hell'd they find us?" Silvano had suddenly forgotten that Shoichi and Fuuta were still sound asleep; his voice had woken the both of them up. His accent had scarily disappeared in the midst of his angry confusion. "What the hell'd we do to leave footprints somewhere?"

Shoichi let out a yawn before finally lifting his head and glancing around. I had known my best friend to be a squinter, but his eyelids were so tightly bound together that I thought his eyes weren't even open yet.

"Why'd you guys wake me up; it's only–"

"Ecchi, hush. We might needa use that secret hole, missy."

The seriousness escalated as Silvano sprinted toward the base of the steps where the water-damaged painting lay. A cloud of dust particles swept up as Silvano pushed the painting aside, revealing a gaping hole behind it.

Fuuta had come to his sense as well, scurrying toward Silvano and poking his head into the hollowed-out wall of the cellar.

"We're going through here?"

Silvano nodded once, wiping his feathery blonde hair out of his face before turning to me. His eyes faintly twitched as the voices increased in volume.

"Missy, hand me my flashlight. It's underneath my pillow."

I hurriedly checked both pillows, finding the silvery flashlight underneath the second pillow, and I stepped lightly over to him to hand it over when a sound stopped me; the door leading to the first floor had closed.

My foot stopped mid-motion as Silvano grabbed his flashlight from me and lifted up his shirt to reveal the pistol that he practiced with earlier today. He gripped it lightly before finding conviction as his grip suddenly tightened, forcing his index finger to the trigger as the footsteps from the stairs above approached the concrete ground.

Shoichi began to move when Silvano slowly advanced toward the doorway, but he stopped when I shot him a glance.

_That idiot's going to get himself killed! He doesn't belong here!_

That's right.

I attempted to breathe even though my chest was beginning to tighten.

Shoichi didn't belong here. He belonged among the professors at his soon-to-be college in Tokyo. He belonged in nice neighborhoods with lapdogs and high heels. Hell, he belonged with the kids who would actually make a difference in the world someday.

He didn't belong here; stuck with the notion that every move could be his last.

The footsteps slowly began to stop as the feet of whomever they belonged to hit the concrete and Silvano began to approach the opening from the side. He slowly drew his gun up to face level and I began to back away. My hands began to tremble as the situation spun around me; I didn't want this.

A swift movement stopped Silvano immediately. He put his gun down by his side and ran toward the figure who had come down the steps and graced them with a tight hug and indecipherable words in Italian.

I breathed in once again when Violetta's voice slowly sank into my ears as a friendly, familiar tone and Silvano broke away from her, declining to speak in Italian this time:

"Mamma, whadda hell is goin' on?"

Violetta seemed much less graceful than she usually appeared; her light hair was splayed in different directions and her eyes darted from one place to the next, almost as if she expected something to pop up from the ceiling or behind a chair.

"We have been found out, my son, I am sorry."

Her eyes suddenly focused when she stared at Silvano's confused face and she went in for another hug, kissing him on the forehead ever-so-lightly. I stole a glance at Shoichi as I moved into position near the hole in the wall in case we needed to go. I grabbed for Enzo's weapon, hoping to have it in the event of an emergency on second-thought, and Shoichi hurried to join me as well.

There was not much else that could be said as noise filled the home from top to bottom, signaling the police's arrival into the home and Silvano quickly pointed toward the hole in the wall.

"Ain't ya gonna–?"

He stopped midsentence as Violetta's brilliant eyes filled with tears and the whites around her eyes began to become a faint pink.

"They have already seen me. If I go with you, you will be found out. They do not know you are here. You must go."

I began to tremble as the house seemed to shake above us with the amount of people storming the premises. Danger seemed to be closing in. From my angle, I couldn't see Silvano's face as Violetta gave him one last embrace and kissed him softly on the forehead once more before pushing him toward Shoichi and I. Fuuta hurried to Shoichi's side and Violetta ushered us through the hole in the wall with her gentle hands.

"Hurry; I will move the painting in front of the hole, but that is all I can do for you."

Silvano was the first one through and I dove into the blackness with him. Shoichi stumbled in behind me and Fuuta more than likely clung to his leg, but the blackness in front of me darkened until I felt as if I was going to drown in it until Silvano in front of me turned on his flashlight.

"Aight," his voice cracked only slightly as he began to advance forward. "The sooner we get outta 'ere, the better."

_He didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to his mother… is she going to be arrested? What the hell is happening?_

My faint fear for my new friend struck me in my stomach like a cruel blow: his mother was a saint. She had been nothing but nice to Shoichi and I upon both of our arrivals into the business that Paulo had created. Hell, I could tell just by the way that Silvano spoke about her that he loved her with all of his heart and he had even told me one day that they had never been separated before.

_In retrospect, I guess I never said goodbye to my father either if they're getting arrested… but I didn't even want to be associated with him in the first place._

I pushed my thoughts about myself out of my mind and focused briefly on following Silvano through this large, dark hole before I asked aloud:

"How the hell did this hole even get here?"

"It was built just for shit like this, missy," Silvano addressed me quietly as the dirt scuffled beneath his shoes just above the sound of our breathing. "Everybody assumed somethin' like this would happen one time or 'nother. Somebody done dug this hole knowin' they'd needa get out somehow."

He suddenly crouched before me and ducked beneath a rock jutting out of the dirt ceiling.

"Watch'ya head."

I copied his swift movement and grimaced at the dirt between my toes. I had been shoeless for my entire amount of time working for Paulo, and I hadn't been this dirty throughout the duration of my stay.

_I'm going to have to shower twenty times to get the dirt off of me!_

"Shoichi-nii," Fuuta's innocent voice wafted through the tunnel. "Will you give me a piggyback ride?"

"O-okay."

I audibly snorted at the thought of my friend trying to carry that child on his back through this tunnel of dirt. Just as I opened my mouth to give Silvano's warning, a distinct "ouch!" interrupted me and I laughed in light of the situation, briefly forgetting how high-risk what we were doing was.

"Shoichi, there's a rock coming out of the top of the tunnel. Watch your head!"

" _Not_  funny, Hana."

Silvano's flashlight flickered for a moment as we came across a flat space in the tunnel. I could finally stand upright for a moment, and in doing so, I cracked my spine to stretch and continued on.

"Aight."

Silvano had suddenly stopped at a certain point, turning his flashlight toward us so that we could all see each other in the dark.

"We'll be gettin' outta this tunnel soon, 'nd I wanna discuss our next move 'fore we get outta 'ere. Imma do it quick though; I ain't want nobody who might be followin' us down 'ere to hear what I've gotta say."

Shoichi paused beside me with Fuuta resting on his shoulders, glancing at me. We locked eyes together before allowing Silvano to say his piece.

"We're gonna hit the outside world, aight? Well, I've got an idea 'bout where we're gonna go. Ain't sure if the cops already hit it, but I'd be surprised if they did. Aye, these people are old friends of ours 'nd even though they ain't directly work with us, they're trustworthy. I know how to get there from 'ere, but ya're gonna have to follow my lead 'nd quickly. Both of ya're top police priority right now 'nd I ain't want nobody seein' ya 'nd turnin' ya in. Missy, ya're gonna use that thing 'nd bring up the rear while I lead ya to the place. Keep up with me, aight?"

Silvano gently gestured to the submachine gun in my arms and I nodded, biting my tongue in this matter. I couldn't argue with our lives on the line.

"Good. Aight, Ecchi, get in front of missy so we can have our formation set 'nd all."

Shoichi slowly started in front of me before turning around.

"Don't be so reckless, okay?"

I snorted and nodded as Silvano's light faded away and we both hurried to catch up to the blonde man. The submachine gun that I carried slowly got heavier the harder I attempted to run with it in my arms, but I kept pushing forward behind my friend and his "little brother". Though, curiosity and anger still bit at my mind:

_What the hell happened to everyone in there?_

* * *

Enzo watched carefully as his former colleagues and boss were seated in separate police vehicles and how the police themselves swarmed in and out of the safe house. He had pleasantly avoided catching any of their gazes and cooperated with all of the questions that the respectful police chief asked him. Though the large man currently was discussing with the other members of the force the people in the household, Enzo's mind began to wander.

" _Was this the right thing to do?"_

The simple question opened up a plethora of doors for his thought process to explore, but he was kindly interrupted by the chief:

"Were those four individuals the only offenders in the home?"

Enzo nodded, swiping his hair as a buzzing bug flew around him.

"Sir!" A policewoman ran up to the chief and quickly stood upright. "There are no other people in the home. We haven't managed to find anything incriminating yet, but we're going to need the K-9 unit to hurry to the scene."

"Thank you."

The chief politely nodded to her and she walked off toward the household again.

Meanwhile, Enzo slowly breathed out. Those damned kids actually did what the hell they were told.

" _The one time it mattered, too."_

"Is there anything more that you would like to say before we take you back to headquarters?"

The police chief's stern gaze did not betray anything more than curiosity to the reason behind the sly man's betrayal, but as if he was going to give into that one. The people who had caused this mess were sitting in the back of the squad cars awaiting their demise. Enzo couldn't help but crack a small smile as the thought of his plan going into action excited him and he could hardly keep his act up even for such a small answer:

"No."

* * *

Silvano had finally stopped at an apparent hole in the wall once again. The fresh air seeped through the cracks from the object that was blocking it and Fuuta's head tilted to the left side.

"Where are we going?"

Silvano glanced at the creepy child and went back to peering through the cracks of the object that covered the hole this time.

"We're goin' to somebody's house. Follow my lead, though; ain't gonna be easy to get around when two of ya're on the nightly news 'nd shit."

After a long moment, Silvano pushed on the object that hid us, which happened to be a flattened cardboard box, and it fell onto the ground. Dust particles flew up from the ground and I ducked my head to sneeze, but it never came and the ticklish feeling faded away.

"Aight, follow me Ecchi. Missy, keep ya eyes peeled behind us 'nd if ya see somethin', don't hesitate to tell me."

Without another glance backward, Silvano stepped on the cardboard box on his way out of the dirt hole and into the much-lighter basement. While there were no windows, it was much brighter and humane than the tunnel that we had emerged from.

"Wait," I asked quickly. My voice had been loud, but I made sure to lower my volume. "What even is this place?"

"It's another one'a Paulo's strongholds. The one we were in was the main one, ya'see, so it's the only one that had that tunnel, yeah."

Silvano hadn't even turned back to look at me as he surveyed the basement of this home. It was much smaller and dirtier than the one that we had previously come from. Once I had come out of the hole, I lifted up the cardboard box again and put it over where we had left from. I wiped my hands against my legs to get the dust away and I gripped the gun in my hands once again as Silvano listened carefully for voices.

"Ain't think anybody's home, though. Ain't used this one since they got busted, too."

His voice had begun to falter, but that was the last thing that he said before continuing toward the stairs. The wooden stair squeaked beneath his white shoes and Silvano put a finger on his lips as Shoichi and I waited at the base of the stairs.

The door creaked open and Silvano poked his head out to survey the home to see if we could leave the basement without any kind of confrontation. After a moment, he quickly jerked his head upward and Shoichi put Fuuta down as the child ran to Silvano's side, tripping over his own feet.

I followed Shoichi upward until my dirty feet slapped against the wood flooring of the first floor and I bolted when Silvano made his way into the driveway. It was then when I looked around at the dark surroundings: the trees seemed to whisper gloomy messages through their leaves and I could see nothing clearly unless it was beneath a streetlight. Shoichi tore ahead of me as Fuuta began to venture into the street.

"What do you think you're doing?" He quickly stopped the child, grabbing onto the hood of his green winter coat.

Fuuta squirmed in Shoichi's grip. "I saw something over there! Can I go get it?"

"We kind of have to  _be_  somewhere…" The impatience in Shoichi's voice was beginning to show, even though I couldn't see his face from this far away in the dark.

I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut; I'm sure the situation could do without my (more-than-likely rude) input. The submachine gun in my arms had been heavy throughout the short journey through the tunnels, but now the heaviness was beginning to bother me. I hadn't even wanted this damn thing in the first place and now it was starting to have an effect on my perception of the world around me.

At every little movement in the dark, I had forced myself to suppress the inevitable jerk of this weapon. I felt as if I had the power to end anything that stepped in my way, which had shown itself to be an unhealthy thought in general. I felt as though I should be using this weapon the same way that Enzo had showed me.

_I guess this is why people choose to stay involved in organized crime. They just can't get enough._

"C'mon; y'all gonna just sit there 'nd wait for people to notice or are ya gonna follow my lead like I asked ya to?"

The sharpness in Silvano's voice caused me to jump and mentally restrain my arms from moving the gun in my arms. I tried to make out the features in Silvano's face, but he had turned away and began to lightly jog up the street.

_His mother probably just got arrested. What the hell is he going to do next? What are any of us going to do next?_

I stored that question in the back of my mind to answer later as I focused on following both Fuuta and Shoichi up the street like I had been told. I wanted to avoid using the gun at all costs; the feeling of fear that I had always struggled with pertaining to guns had been pushed away since I had woken up what seemed like an hour ago. Adrenaline pushed me forward and widened my vision as I spun around multiple times trying to make sure we weren't being followed.

I hadn't registered in the slightest how far we had run or how little of Fuuta and Shoichi's conversation I had heard, but I began to pant as Silvano suddenly cut a hard right onto someone's yard and sprinted toward the front door, furiously pounding on the doorbell. Fuuta had followed his lead as quickly as his small legs could carry him, but I lagged behind. This street seemed somewhat familiar–though it wasn't my own–but I knew that it was in my neighborhood.

_If I really want to, I can drop the gun and run._

The thought stopped me altogether. I really could just take off and go to my mother and hope that everything could go back to normal. I could pretend that the Mafia didn't exist and that the people I had come to know were totally not in jail or on the run.

_I don't have to do any of this._

What Byakuran had said to me in the future could have meant anything. I could seize any kind of power that I wanted. It didn't have to be Mafia power.

_This is your best bet. You can't leave after what just happened._

I tried arguing against the thought and I even turned my head as if to run, but a voice stopped me as I took a feverish breath:

"Hana, are you coming?"

Shoichi stood only a yard or two in front of me. The tone of his voice betrayed little, but I could see in his body language that he was equally as afraid as I was.

_If I do go down this road, if I'm left with no choice, he's not coming with me._

I nodded automatically, lowering the gun to knee-length as the adrenaline faded. My vision blurred and the dark grass blended together as my hands began to shake. The gun in my hands was not mine. I could make sure that I never had to carry it like that again. If only I knew there was some way that what Byakuran had meant at that moment had nothing to do with the Mafia. Unfortunately, of course he had meant seize the Mafia. As much as I had tried to talk myself out of it once the realization had sunk in, I knew that there was no way out of it at this rate.

_It's either do what he says or doom everyone I know into a terrible future. Am I going to be selfish or give myself up for them?_

"Okay," Shoichi told me and he waited for me to catch up to him before staring toward the door alongside me. Silvano and Fuuta appeared to have already made it inside. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"No, of course not. That's been the whole theme of our kidnappings, has it not?"

I could have spit with the amount of venom leaking from my mind to my tongue, but Shoichi seemed to understand and promptly snatched Enzo's weapon from my limp arms. Not that I could complain; I already hated the thing and my hands had begun to ache with the pose that I stuck them in.

"I've been a hopeless tissue box this whole time." Shoichi managed to laugh a little. "I'm not really sure what's been going on since I got put here. I'm sure we'll be able to get out soon, though. Maybe then we can go back to our normal lives before I go off to Tokyo."

The sunshine in his voice had slowly faded away into nothing and I looked up to see that his eyes had misted up. I raised my eyebrows in an attempt to summon some words that would lighten the situation, but nothing that I could have said would make his eyes dry up. Hell, Silvano was in limbo with his mother being arrested and I couldn't even tell him that she'd be okay in the midst of it all.

_Shoichi thinks_ _ he's _ _hopeless?_

We had finally reached the door and Silvano let us in before closing the door behind us. His face betrayed the slightest bit of annoyance before shrugging it off.

"'bout time ya showed up. Aight, we'll be stayin' 'ere for a bit until I figure out whadda hell we're supposed to do now."

"Where the hell do you figure that?"

A deep voice greeted me and for a moment, I thought that it was Paulo. However, I was proved fatally wrong as a man who was tall and rather built snaked out from a back room. His clean-shaven face and dark hair complimented his green eyes and his olive skin as the leather jacket that he wore sagged off of his shoulders.

"Unless ya want us to go 'nd get busted too, we ain't gotta choice."

The man laughed, his voice filling the small entryway. It reminded me of the image of honey sliding down the bark of a tree.

"Okay, kid. It's not like  _I_  would say no. Kim's got another thing coming for you, I'd bet."

Shoichi glanced at me, confused. I shared his confusion as a small, blonde woman appeared from a different room. Her hair spread in different directions and her eyes flashed with irritation.

"What the fuck is going on out here? I've already been woken up once tonight; I don't need any more of this bullshit."

The mouth on this was nearly identical to mine when I get woken up for virtually no reason and I noticed that her hazel eyes darted to the man who had already greeted us with more malice than I could have imagined in my worst nightmare.

"Z, we don't have time for this shit. Kick these mites out of here and come back to bed."

"Sorry, Kim. No-can-do; this is directly correlated with the first time why we were woken up. These kids escaped the bust."

Her eyes suddenly sharpened as she looked over Shoichi and I and finally over to Fuuta.

"Evading arrest? Nice."

Though, she glazed over Silvano and her hand slipped, careening into his cheek with a loud clap.

"I thought I told you not to come back unless it was an emergency!"

"It  _is_  an emergency!" Silvano rubbed his cheek furiously as he scrambled for the words to say to explain the situation, but this Kim woman wasn't having it.

"I know all about it. Others heard about it and informed us about thirty minutes ago. That Enzo-fucker was behind it, I get it. All I want is to get some damn sleep and not have to care for  _more_ kids that aren't mine!"

_More?_

Even Fuuta looked taken-aback by this development, and the large man began to explain:

"We found a kid your age wandering around and he asked if he could stay with us until he found his footing. That's about it for–"

"Wait," Silvano's voice had begun to shake very suddenly and when I turned to look at him, his fists had also begun to quake. "Did ya say Enzo was the one…?"

Kim rubbed her eyes and slowly stretched in her pajamas and nightcap before slipping back into her fuzzy slippers.

"Yeah. Never trusted his ass in the first place. I don't know why Paulo even hired him; I told him not to. I guess this is what happens when people don't listen to me… they always seem to go down the hard way. I'm going the fuck back to bed, and I pray for the poor soul who wakes me up a third time."

Kim trudged away gently, and I stared after her until a door slammed from somewhere else in the small home.

When I turned around once again, Silvano was seething. Any trace of calmness had disappeared and I was left with nothing but a trembling heap of a human being that had been wronged one too many times.

"I'm going to kill him."

"Killing?" Another unfamiliar voice spoke from somewhere that I couldn't pinpoint. "I hope you're not pushing anybody off of a cliff. There isn't any satisfaction that way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q&A:
> 
> Wait! Why did this have to happen?
> 
> You didn't expect them to be completely blissful forever, did you? While many would argue that it was simply a ploy to further the plot, I'm afraid it goes deeper than that. I actually wanted for the kids to learn a few more things, but I can't conveniently have them learn all they need to know before being found out by the police.
> 
> Is this going to leave the door wide open for Hana to take over the Todd Famiglia?
> 
> I mean, it would be that simple in somebody else's fic.
> 
> What other kinds of hell do you have in-store for your characters?
> 
> This is only the beginning.
> 
> What's up with Enzo?
> 
> I was actually going to explain it in this chapter, but I figured that that was a conversation for another day. I'm just hoping I didn't make it too obvious. Stay tuned to find out!
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> Have fun with trying to figure out my cryptic messages in this chapter!
> 
> ~Teafully~

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure you have some questions, but I'll try and answer the ones that seem the most pressing at the end of every chapter so I don't have ten people asking me the same thing! I've seen other authors do this on some sites (I'm not sure about this fandom/site, though…) so hopefully the same works for me. I'm sorry that it's probably super long and it'll be this way probably every chapter. 
> 
> Q&A:
> 
> Why didn't you mention the protagonist's real name?
> 
> Believe it or not, that's an important point for later in the story! It'd spoil everything if I revealed it now.
> 
> Does she know anything about the KHR world?
> 
> Her memories were taken in exchange for another chance at life, remember? So, if she did, she still wouldn't know a thing. Personally, I'm not a fan of the whole "I know what's going to happen so I'm going to do that" and then it causes a whole butterfly effect and then they end up doing a canon-rehash and I just… ack. This is my personal take on the reincarnation idea. I'm not rewriting canon. That's why I chose this path. I wrote my own damn canon.
> 
> What's with that backstory?
> 
> I thought it was unique compared to what others seem to do with their stories. I mean, think about it; someone who has never experienced "love" before and overestimates their feelings to please someone else… this time going rather extreme… I actually liked it compared to my previous ideas for dying and being reborn and for the "standard" ideas that I have seen many in this fandom have.
> 
> Why is Masato all… I don't know, mopey at the end?
> 
> Have you ever expected to get something and then ended up getting the exact opposite? He is disappointed.
> 
> Weird chapter name, huh?
> 
> Yeah, but I've decided that I'm going to have all of my chapter names be named after flowers! As lame as that sounds, I have a plan for it. I have also decided to put descriptions of these flowers and their meanings behind them in the title. I hope it doesn't look too busy at the top!
> 
> ~Teafully~


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